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THE 
SHADOW WORLD 



BY 

HAMLIN GARLAND 

author of 

'the captain of the gray- horse troop 1 

"money magic" etc. 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 

HARPER Sr BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

M C M VI I I 



<^ N 



M 



.iooies Hec»! 

I OCT S 

Sowvf if'" c.»iu> 



Copyright, 1908, by Hamlin Garland. 
Copyright, 1908, by The Ridgway Company. 

All rights reserved. 
Published September, 1908. 



*o 



FOREWORD 

THIS book is a faithful record, so far as I can 
make it, of the most marvellous phenomena 
which have come under my observation during the 
last sixteen or seventeen years. I have used my 
notes (made immediately after the sittings) and 
also my reports to the American Psychical Society 
(of which I was at one time a director) as the basis 
of my story. For literary purposes I have substi- 
tuted fictitious names for real names, and imag- 
inary characters for the actual individuals con- 
cerned; but I have not allowed these necessary 
expedients to interfere with the precise truth of the 
account. 

For example, Miller, an imaginary chemist, has 
been put in the place of a scientist much older than 
thirty-five, in whose library the inexplicable "third 
sitting" took place. Fowler, also, is not intended 
to depict an individual. The man in whose shoes 
he stands is one of the most widely read and deeply 
experienced spiritists I have ever known, and I have 
sincerely tried to present through Fowler the argu- 
ment which his prototype might have used. Mrs. 

iii 



FOREWORD 

Quigg, Miss Brush, Howard, the Camerons, and 
most of the others, are purely imaginary. The 
places in which the sittings took place are not in- 
dicated, for the reason that I do not wish to in- 
volve any unwilling witnesses. 

In the case of the psychics, they are, of course, 
delineated exactly as they appeared to me, although 
I have concealed their real names and places of 
residence. Mrs. Smiley, whose admirable patience 
under investigation makes her an almost ideal sub- 
ject, is the chief figure among my "mediums," 
and I have tried to give her attitude toward us and 
toward her faith as she expressed it in our sittings, 
although the conversation is necessarily a mixture 
of imagination and memory. Mrs. Hartley is a 
very real and vigorous character — a professional 
psychic, it is true, but a woman of intelligence and 
power. Those in private life I have guarded with 
scrupulous care, and I am sure that none of them, 
either private or professional, will feel that I have 
wilfully misrepresented what took place. My aim 
throughout has been to deal directly and simply 
with the facts involved. 

I have not attempted to be profound or mystical 
or even scientific, but I have tried to present clear- 
ly, simply, and, as nearly without bias as possible, 
an account of what I have seen and heard. The 
weight of evidence seems, at the moment, to be on 
the side of the biologists; but I am willing to re- 

iv 



FOREWORD 

open the case at any time, although I am, above 
all, a man of the open air, of the plains and the 
mountains, and do not intend to identify myself 
with any branch of metapsychical research. It is 
probable, therefore, that this is my one and final 
contribution to the study of the shadow world. 

Hamlin Garland. 
Chicago, July, 1908. 



THE SHADOW WORLD 



THE SHADOW WORLD 



i 



A HUSH fell over the dinner -table, and every 
ear was open and inclined as Cameron, the 
host, continued: "No, I wouldn't say that. There 
are some things that are pretty well established — 
telepathy, for instance." 

" I don't believe even in telepathy," asserted Mrs. 
Quigg, a very positive journalist who sat at his right. 
"I think even that is mere coincidence." 

Several voices rose in a chorus of protest. "Oh 
no! Telepathy is real. Why, I've had experi- 
ences — " 

"There you go!" replied Mrs. Quigg, still in the 
heat of her opposition. "You will all tell the same 
story. Your friend was dying in Bombay or Vi- 
enna, and his spirit appeared to you, a la Journal 
of Psychic Research, with a message, at the exact 
hour, computing difference in time (which no one 
ever does), and so on. I know that kind of thing 
—but that isn't telepathy." 

3 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"What is telepathy, then?" asked little Miss 
Brush, who paints miniatures. 

"I can't describe a thing that doesn't exist," re- 
plied Mrs. Quigg. "The word means feeling at a 
distance, does it not, professor ?" 

Harris, a teacher of English, who seldom took a 
serious view of anything, answered, "I should call 
it a long-distance touch." 

" Do you believe in hypnotism, Dr. Miller ?" 
asked Miss Brush, quietly addressing her neigh- 
bor, a young scientist whose specialty was chem- 
istry. 

"No," replied he; "I don't believe in a single one 
of these supernatural forces." 

"You mean you don't believe in anything you 
have not seen yourself," said I. 

To this Miller slowly replied: "I believe in Vi- 
enna, which I have never seen, but I don't believe 
in a Vienna doctor who claims to be able to hyp- 
notize a man so that he can smile while his leg is 
being taken off." 

"Oh, that's a fact," stated Brierly, the portrait- 
painter; "that happens every day in our hospitals 
here in New York City." 

" Have you ever seen it done ?" asked Miller, 
bristling with opposition. 

"No." 

"Well," asserted Miller, "I wouldn't believe it 
even if I saw the operation performed." 

4 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"You don't believe in any mystery unless it is 
familiar," said I, warming to the contest. 

"I certainly do not believe in these childish mys- 
teries," responded Miller, "and it is strange to me 
that men like Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir William 
Crookes should believe in slate-writing and levita- 
tion and all the rest of that hocus-pocus." 

"Nevertheless, hypnotism is a fact," insisted 
Brierly. "You must have some faith in the big 
books on the subject filled with proof. Think of 
the tests — " 

" I don't call it a test to stick pins into a person's 
tongue," said Mrs. Quigg. "We newspaper people 
all know that there are in the hypnotic business 
what they call ' horses' — that is to say, wretched 
men and boys, women sometimes, who have trained 
themselves so that they can hold hot pennies, eat 
red pepper, and do other 'stunts' — we've had their 
confessions times enough." 

"Yes, but their confessions are never quite com- 
plete," retorted young Howard. "When I was in 
college I had one of these ' horses ' appeal to me for 
help. He was out of a job, and I told him I'd blow 
him to the supper of his life if he would render up 
the secrets of his trade. He took my offer, but 
jarred me by confessing that the professor really 
could hypnotize him. He had to make believe 
only part of the time. His 'stunts' were mostly 
real." 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"It's the same way with mediums," said I. "I 
have had a good deal of experience with them, 
and I've come to the conclusion that they all, even 
the most untrustworthy of them, start with at least 
some small basis of abnormal power. Is it not 
rather suggestive that the number of practising 
mediums does not materially increase ? If it were 
a mere matter of deception, would there not be 
thousands at the trade ? As a matter of fact, there 
are not fifty advertising mediums in New York at 
this moment, though of course the number is kept 
down by the feeling that it is a bit disreputable to 
have these powers." 

"You're too easy on them," said Howard. "I 
never saw one that wasn't a cheap skate." 

Again I protested. "Don't be hasty. There 
are nice ones. My own mother had this power 
in her youth, so my father tells me. Her people 
were living in Wisconsin at the time when this 
psychic force developed in her, and the settlers 
from many miles around came to see her * perform.' 
An uncle, when a boy of four, did automatic writ- 
ing, and one of my aunts recently wrote to me, 
in relation to my book The Tyranny of the Dark, 
that for two years (beginning when she was about 
seventeen) these powers of darkness made her life 
a hell. It won't do to be hasty in condemning the 
mediums wholesale. There are many decent peo- 
ple who are possessed by strange forces, but are 

6 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

shy of confessing their abnormalities. Ask your 
family physician. He will tell you that he always 
has at least one patient who is troubled by occult 
powers." 

"Medical men call it 'hysteria,'" said Har- 
ris. 

"Which doesn't explain anything," I answered. 
"Many apparently healthy people possess the more 
elementary of these powers — often without know- 
ing it." 

"We are all telepathic in some degree," declared 
Brierly. 

"Perhaps all the so-called messages from the 
dead come from living minds," I suggested — "I 
mean the minds of those about us. Dr. Reed, a 
friend of mine, once arranged to go with a patient 
to have a test sitting with a very celebrated psychic 
who claimed to be able to read sealed letters. Just 
before the appointed day, Reed's patient died sud- 
denly of heart-disease, leaving a sealed letter on 
his desk. The doctor, fully alive to the singular 
opportunity, put the letter in his pocket and has- 
tened to the medium. The magician took it in 
his hand and pondered. At last he said: 'This 
was written by a man now in the spirit world. I 
cannot sense it. There isn't a medium in the world 
who can read it, but if you will send it to any per- 
son anywhere on the planet and have it read and 
resealed, I will tell you what is in it. I cannot get 

7 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the words unless some mind in the earth-plane has 
absorbed them.'" 

Harris spoke first. "That would seem to prove 
a sort of universal mind reservoir, wouldn't it ?" 

"That is the way my friend figured it. But 
isn't that a staggering hypothesis ? I have never 
had a sealed letter read, but the psychic research 
people seem to have absolutely proved psychometry 
to be a fact. After you read Myers you are ready 
to believe anything — or nothing." 

The hostess rose. "Suppose we go into the 
library and have more ghost stories. Come, Mr. 
Garland, we can't leave you men here to talk your- 
selves out on these interesting subjects. You must 
let us all hear what you have to say." 

In more or less jocose mood the company trooped 
out to the library, where a fire was glowing in the 
grate and easy-chairs abounded. The younger 
people, bringing cushions, placed themselves be- 
side the hearth, while I took a seat near Mrs. Cam- 
eron and Harris. 

"There!" said Miss Brush, with a gurgle of de- 
light. "This is more like the proper light and 
surroundings for creepy tales. Please go on, Mr. 
Garland. You said you'd had a good deal of ex- 
perience — tell us all about it. I always think of 
you as a trailer, a man of the plains. How did you 
happen to get into this shadow world ?" 

"It came about while I was living in Boston. 

8 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

It was in 1891, or possibly 1892. A friend, the 
editor of the Arena, asked me to become a member 
of the American Psychical Society, which he was 
helping to form. He wished me to go on the Board 
of Directors, because, as he said, I was 'young, 
a keen observer, and without emotional bias' 
— by which he meant that I had not been be- 
reaved." 

"Quite right; the loss of a child or a wife weakens 
even the best of us illogical/' commented Harris. 
"No man who is mourning a relative has any busi- 
ness to be calling himself an investigator of spirit- 
ualism." 

"Well, the upshot was, I joined the society, 
became a member of the Executive Board, was made 
a special committee on ' physical phenomena' — that 
is to say, slate-writing, levitation, and the like — and 
set to work. It was like entering a new, vague, 
and mysterious world. The first case I investi- 
gated brought out one of the most fundamental of 
these facts, which is, that this shadow world lies 
very close to the sunny, so-called normal day. The 
secretary of the society had already begun to re- 
ceive calls for help. A mechanic had written from 
South Boston asking us to see his wife's automatic 
writing, and a farmer had come down from Con- 
cord to tell us of a haunted house and the mysteri- 
ous rappings on its walls. Almost in a day I was 
made aware of the illusory side of life." 

9 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Why illusory ?" asked Brierly. 

"Let us call it that for the present," I answered. 
"Among those who wrote to us was a woman from 
Lowell whose daughter had developed strange pow- 
ers. Her account, so straightforward and so pre- 
cise, determined us to investigate the case. There- 
fore, our secretary (a young clergyman) and I took 
the train for Lowell one autumn afternoon. We 
found Mrs. Jones living in a small, old-fashioned 
frame house standing hard against the sidewalk, 
and through the parlor windows, while we awaited 
the psychic, I watched an endless line of derby 
hats as the town's mechanics plodded by — incessant 
reminders of the practical, hard-headed world that 
filled the street. This was, indeed, a typical case. 
In half an hour we were all sitting about the table 
in a dim light, while the sweet-voiced mother was 
talking with ' Charley,' her 'poltergeist'- — " 

"What is that, please ?" asked Mrs. Quigg. 

"The word means a rollicking spirit who throws 
things about. I did not value what happened at 
this sitting, for the conditions were all the psychic's 
own. By-the-way, she was a large, blond, strap- 
ping girl of twenty or so — one of the mill-hands — 
not in the least the sickly, morbid creature I had 
expected to see. As I say, the conditions were 
such as to make what took place of no scientific 
value, and I turned in no report upon it; but it was 
all very curious." 

10 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"What happened? Don't skip," bade Mrs. 
Cameron. 

"Oh, the table rapped and heaved and slid about. 
A chair crawled to my lap and at last to the top of 
the table, apparently of its own motion. A little 
rocking-chair moved to and fro precisely as if some 
one were sitting in it, and so on. It was all uncon- 
vincing at the time, but as I look back upon it now, 
after years of experience, I am inclined to think 
part of it at least was genuine. And this brings 
me to say to Mrs. Quigg, and to any other doubter, 
that you have only to step aside into silence and 
shadow and wait for a moment — and the bewilder- 
ing will happen, or you will imagine it to happen. 
I will agree to furnish from this company a medium 
that will astonish even our materialistic friend 
Miller." 

There was a loud outcry: "What do you mean ? 
Explain yourself!" 

"I am perfectly certain that if this company will 
sit as I direct for twenty-one days at the same hour, 
in the same room, under the same conditions, 
phenomena will develop which will not merely 
amaze but scare some of you; and as for you, Mrs. 
Quigg, you who are so certain that nothing ever 
happens, you will be the first to turn pale with 
awe." 

"Try me! I am wild to be 'shown.'" 

Harris was not so boastful. "You mean, of 
ii 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

course, that some of these highly cultured ladies 
would develop hysteria ?" 

"I am not naming the condition; I only say 
that I have seen some very hard-headed and self- 
contained people cut strange capers. The trance 
and * impersonation' usually come first." 

"Let's do it!" cried out Miss Brush. "It would 
be such fun!" 

"You'd be the first to 'go off,'" said I, banter- 
ingly. 

Harris agreed. "She is neuropathic." 

"I propose we start a psychic society here and 
now," said Cameron. "I'll be president, Mrs. 
Ouigg secretary, and Garland can be the director 
of the awful rites. Miss Brush, you shall be the 
'mejum.'" 

"Oh no, no!" she cried, "please let some one else 
be it." 

This amused me, but I seized upon Cameron's 
notion. "I accept the arrangement provided you 
do not hold me responsible for any ill effects," I 
said. "It's ticklish business. There are many 
who hold the whole process diabolic." 

" Is the house ready for the question ?" asked 
Cameron. 

"Ay, ay!" shouted every one present. 

"The society is formed," announced Cameron. 
"As president, I suggest a sitting right now. How 
about it, Garland ?" 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

" Certainly !" I answered, "for I have an itching 
in my thumbs that tells me something witching 
this way comes." 

The guests rose in a flutter of pleased excite- 
ment. 

"How do we go at it?" asked Mrs. Cameron. 

"The first requisite is a small table — " 

"Why a table?" asked Mrs. Quigg. 

"The theory is that it helps to concentrate the 
minds of the sitters, and it will also furnish a 
convenient place to rest our hands. Anyhow, all 
the great investigators began this way," I replied, 
pacifically. "We may also require a pencil and a 
pad." 

Miller was on his dignity. " I decline to sit at a 
table in that foolish way. I shall look on in lonely 
grandeur." 

The others were eager to "sit in," as young 
Howard called it, and soon nine of us were seated 
about an oblong mahogany table. Brierly was 
very serious, Miss Brush ecstatic, and Mrs. Harris 
rather nervous. 

I was careful to prepare them all for failure. 
"This is only a trial sitting, you know, merely to 
get our hands in," I warned. 

"Must we keep still?" 

"Oh no! You may talk, if you do so quietly. 
Please touch fingers, so as to make a complete cir- 
cuit. I don't think it really necessary, but it some- 

13 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

times helps to produce the proper mental state; 
singing softly also tends to harmonize the 'condi- 
tions,' as the professionals say. Don't argue and 
don't be too eager. Lean back and rest. Take a 
passive attitude toward the whole problem. I find 
the whole process very restful. Harris, will you 
turn down the lights before — " 

"There!" said Miller, "the hocus-pocus begins. 
Why not perform in the light ?" 

"Subdued light will bring the proper negative 
and inward condition sooner," I replied, taking a 
malicious delight in his disgust. "Now will some 
one sing ' Annie Laurie,' or any other sweet, low 
song ? Let us get into genial, receptive mood. 
Miller, you and your fellow-doubters please retire 
to the far end of the room." 

In a voice that trembled a little, Mrs. Harris 
started the dear old melody, and all joined in, pro- 
ducing a soft and lulling chorus. 

At the end of the song I asked, matter-of-factly: 
"Are the conditions right ? Are we sitting right ?" 

Mrs. Quigg sharply queried, "Whom are you 
talking to ?" 

"The 'guides,'" I answered. 

"The 'guides'!" she exclaimed. "Do you be- 
lieve in the guides ?" 

"I believe in the belief of the guides," was my 
cryptic rejoinder. " Sing again, please." 

I really had no faith in the conditions of the 
H 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

circle, but for the joke of it I kept my sitters in 
place for nearly an hour by dint of pretending to 
hear creakings and to feel throbbings, until at last 
little Miss Brush became very deeply concerned. 
"I feel them, too," she declared. "Did some one 
blow on my hands ? I felt a cold wave." 

Harris got up abruptly. " I'll join the doubters," 
said he. "This tomfoolery is too idiotic for me." 

Cameron followed, and Mrs. Quigg also rose. 
"I'll go with you," she said, decidedly. I was 
willing to quit, too, but Mrs. Harris and Miss 
Brush pleaded with me to continue. 

"Close up the circle, then. Probably Harris 
was the hoodoo. Things will happen now," I 
said, briskly, though still without any faith in the 
experiment. 

Hardly had Harris left the table when a shudder 
passed over Mrs. Harris, her head lifted, and her 
eyes closed. 

"What's the matter, Dolly?" whispered Mrs. 
Camerono "Do you feel faint?" 

"Don't be alarmed! Mrs. Harris is only pass- 
ing into a sleep. Not a word, Harris!" I said, 
warningly. "Please move farther away." 

In the dusky light the faces of all the women 
looked suddenly blanched and strange as the en- 
tranced woman seized upon the table with her hands, 
shaking it hard from side to side. The table seemed 
to wake to diabolic energy under her palms. This 

*5 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

was an unexpected development, and I was almost 
as much surprised as the others were. 

"Sing again," I commanded, softly. 

As they sang, Mrs. Harris withdrew her hands 
from the table and sat rigidly erect, yet with a 
peaceful look upon her face. "She does it well, ,, 
I thought. "I didn't think it in the quiet little 
lady." At length one hand lifted and dropped 
limply upon the table. "It wants to write," said 
I. "Where is the pad? I have a pencil." 

As I put a pencil under the hand, it was seized 
in a very singular way, and almost instantly Mrs. 
Cameron gasped, "That's very strange!" 

"Hush!" said I. "Wait!" 

Holding the pencil clumsily as a crippled person 
might do, the hand crept over the paper, and at 
last, after writing several lines, stopped and lay 
laxly open. I passed the pad to Brierly. "Read it 
aloud," I said. 

He took it to the light and read: 

" Sara, be not sceptical. Believe and you will be 
happier. Life is only the minutest segment of the great 
circle. Martin." 

"My father!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. "Let 
me see the writing." Brierly handed the pad to 
her. She stared upon it in awe and wonder. "It 
is his exact signature — and Dolly held the pen just 

16 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

as he did — he was paralyzed toward the last — and 
could only write by holding his pen that way." 

"Look! it's moving again/' I exclaimed. 

The hand caught up the pencil, and, holding it 
between the thumb and forefinger in a peculiar 
way, began moving it in the air. Brierly, who sat 
opposite, translated these movements. "She is 
drawing, free-hand, in the air. She is sketching 
the outline of a boat. See how she measures and 
plumbs her lines! Are you addressing me?" he 
asked of Mrs. Harris. 

The sleeper nodded. 

"Can't you write?" I asked. "Can't you 
speak ?" 

A low gurgle in the throat was the only answer 
at the moment, but after a few trials a husky whisper 
began to be heard. "I will try," she said, and sud- 
denly began to chuckle, rolling upon one hip and 
throwing one foot over the other like a man taking 
an easy attitude. She now held the pencil as if it 
were a cigarette, laughing again with such generous 
tone that the other women recoiled. Then she 
spoke, huskily. "You know— San Remo — Sands," 
came brokenly from her lips. 

"Sands?" queried the painter; "who is Sands?" 

"Sands — San Remo — boats." 

The painter was puzzled. "I don't remember 
any Sands at San Remo. It must be some student 
I knew in Paris. Is that what you mean ?" 

17 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Mrs. Harris violently nodded. As abruptly as 
it came, this action left her, and then slowly, im- 
perceptibly, her expression changed, a look of in- 
effable maternal sweetness came into her face; she 
seemed to cradle a tiny babe upon her arm. At 
last she sighed, "Oh, the pity of it, the pity of it!" 

For a minute we sat in silence, so compelling 
were her gestures and her tone. At last I asked, 
"Has any one here lost a little child ?" 

Mrs. Cameron spoke, hesitatingly, "Yes — I lost 
a little baby — years ago." 

"She is addressing you — perhaps." 

Mrs. Harris did not respond to this suggestion, 
but changed into an impersonation of a rollicking 
girl of rather common fibre. "Hello, Sally!" she 
cried out, and Mrs. Cameron stared at her in blank 
dismay as she asked, "Are you talking to me ?" 

"You bet I am, you old bag o' wool. Remember 
Geny ? Remember the night on the door-step ? 
Ooo! but it was cold! You were to blame." 

"What is she talking about?" I asked, seeing 
that Mrs. Cameron was reluctant to answer this 
challenge. 

"She seems to be impersonating an old class- 
mate of mine at college — " 

"That's what!" broke in the voice. 

Mrs. Cameron went on, "Her name was Eu- 
genia Hull — " 

"Is yet," laughed the voice. "Same old sport. 
18 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Couldn't find any man good enough. You didn't 
like me, but no matter; I want to tell you that 
you're in danger of fire. Don't play with fire. 
Be careful of fire — " 

Again a calm blankness fell upon the psychic's 
delicate and sensitive face, and the hand once more 
slowly closed upon the pencil. 

"My father again!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. 
"How could Dolly have known that he held his 
pen in just that way ? She never saw him." 

"Do not place too much value on such per- 
formances," I cautioned. "She has probably heard 
you describe it. Or she might have taken it out 
of your subconscious mind." 

The pencil dropped. The hand lifted. The 
form of the sleeper expanded with power. Her 
face took on benignity and lofty serenity. She 
rose slowly, impressively, and with her hand up- 
raised in a peculiar gesture, laid a blessing upon 
the head of her hostess. There was so much of 
sweetness and tolerance in her face, so much of 
dignity and power in every movement that I was 
moved to applaud the actress. As we all sat thus, 
deeply impressed by her towering attitude, Mrs. 
Cameron whispered: "Why, it is Bishop Blank! 
That is exactly the way he held his hand — his 
robe!" 

"Is it the bishop ?" I asked. 

The psychic bowed and in solemn answer spoke. 
19 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Tell James all will yet be well," she said, and, 
making the sign of blessing once more, sank back 
into her chair. 

Meanwhile the irreverent ribalds in the far end 
of the room were disturbing the solemnity of all 
this communion with the shades, and at my sug- 
gestion we went up-stairs to Mrs. Cameron's own 
sitting-room, where we could be quiet. Seizing a 
moment when Mrs. Harris was free from the "in- 
fluence," I woke her and told her what we were 
about to do. She followed Mrs. Cameron readily, 
although she seemed a little dazed, and five of us 
continued the sitting, with Mrs. Quigg and Came- 
ron looking on with perfectly evident doubt of our 
psychic's sincerity. Harris was rigidly excluded. 

In the quiet of this room Mrs. Harris passed 
almost immediately into trance — or what seemed 
like a trance — and ran swiftly over all her former 
impersonations. Voice succeeded voice, almost 
without pause. The sweet mother with the child, 
the painter of San Remo, the jovial and slangy 
girl, the commanding and majestic figure of the 
bishop — all returned repeatedly, in bewildering 
mixture, dropping away, one after the other, 
with disappointing suddenness. And yet each 
time the messages grew a little more definite, a 
little more coherent, until at last they all cleared up, 
and this in opposition to our thought , to our first 
interpretations. It developed that the painter was 

20 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

not named "Sands," but "Felipi," and that he was 
only trying to tell Brierly that to succeed he should 
paint rocks and sands and old boats at San Remo. 
"Pauline/' the woman who had seemed to hold a 
babe, was a friend of Mrs. Cameron's who had 
died in childbirth. And then swiftly, unaccount- 
ably, all these gentle or genial influences were 
scattered as if by something hellish, something 
diabolic. The face of the sweet little woman be- 
came fiendish in line. Her lips snarled, her hands 
clawed like those of a cat, and out of her mouth 
came a hoarse imprecation. "I'll tear your heart 
out!" she snarled. "I'll kill you soul and body — 
I'll rip you limb from limb!" We all recoiled in 
amazement and wonder. It was as if our friend 
had suddenly gone insane. 

I confess to a feeling of profound astonishment. 
I had never met Mrs. Harris before, but as she was 
an intimate friend of Mrs. Cameron, and quite 
evidently a woman of culture, I could not think 
her so practised a joker as to be "putting all this 
on." 

While still we sat in silence, another voice uttered 
a wail of infinite terror and despair. "/ didn't do 
it! Dont kill me! It was not my work." And 
then, still more horrible to hear, a sound like the 
gurgling of blood came from the psychic's lips, 
mixed with babbled, frantic, incoherent words. I 
had a perfectly definite impression that she was 

21 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

impersonating some one with his throat cut. Her 
grimaces were disgusting and terrifying. The 
women shivered with horror. A few seconds later 
and her face changed; the hideous mask became 
white, expressing rigid, exalted terror. Her arms 
were drawn back as if tied at the elbow behind her 
back. Her head was uplifted, and in a low, mo- 
notonous, hushed voice she prayed: "Lord Jesus, 
receive — " 

A gasping, gurgling cry cut short her prayer, 
and, with tongue protruding from her mouth, she 
presented such a picture of a strangling woman 
that a sudden clear conception of what it all meant 
came to me. "She's impersonating a woman on 
the scaffold," I explained. "She has shown us a 
murder, and now she is depicting an execution. Is 
it Mrs. R., of Vermont ?" I asked. 

She nodded slowly. "Save me!" she whispered. 

"Waken her, please. Don't let her do that any 
more," pleaded Mrs. Cameron, in poignant distress. 

Thereupon I called out, sharply: "That is 
enough! Wake! Wake I" 

In answer to my command she ceased to groan; 
her face smoothed out, and with a bewildered 
smile she opened her eyes. "What are you say- 
ing ? Have I been asleep ?" 

"You have, indeed," I replied, "and you've 
disclosed a deal of dubious family history. How 
do you feel ?" 

22 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I feel very funny around my neck," she an- 
swered, wonderingly. "What have you been do- 
ing to me?" She rubbed her throat. "My neck 
feels as if it had a band round it, and my tongue 
seems swollen. What have you been about ?" 

I held up a warning hand to the others. "You 
went off into a quiet little trance, that's all. I 
was mistaken. Either you are a psychic or you 
should have been an actress." 

As we stood thus confronting one another, Mrs. 
Cameron came between us, saying, " Do you know, 
Pauline came and talked with me — •" 

At the word Pauline the spell seemed to fall 
again over the bright spirit of Mrs. Harris. Her 
eyelids drooped, her limbs lost their power, and 
she sank into her chair as before, a helpless victim, 
apparently, to the hidden forces. For a moment 
I was at a loss. I could not believe that she was 
deceiving us, but it was possible that she was de- 
ceiving herself. "In either case, she must be 
brought out of this," I decided, and, putting my 
hands on her shoulders, I said: "If there is any 
'control' here, let them stop this. We want no 
more of it. Stop it!" 

My command was again obeyed, and the psychic 
slowly came back to herself, and as she did so I 
said, warningly, to Mrs. Cameron: "Do not utter 
another word of this in Mrs. Harris's presence. 
She seems to be extremely sensitive to hypnotic in- 

23 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

fluence, and I think she had better go out into the 
air at once/' 

In rather subdued mood we went below to rejoin 
the frankly contemptuous members of the party. 

"Well, what luck?" cried Howard. 

"You all look rather solemn," said Harris. 
"What about it? Dolly, what have you been 

doing ?" 

Mrs. Cameron described the sitting as wonderful, 
but Mrs. Harris only smiled vaguely, and I said: 
"Your wife seemed to go into a trance and imper- 
sonate a number of individuals. She shows all the 
signs of a real sensitive." 

Harris, who had been studying his wife with 
half-humorous intentness, now took command. 
"If you've been shamming, you need discipline; 
and if you haven't, you need a doctor. I think 
we'll go home and have it out," he added, and 
shortly after led her away. "Some nice cool air 
is what we need," he said at the door. 

No sooner were the Harrises out of the door than 
the women of the party fell upon me. 

"What do you think of it, Mr. Garland ?" asked 
Mrs. Cameron. 

"If Mrs. Harris were not your friend, and if I 
had not seen other performances of the same sort, I 
should instantly say that she was having her joke 
with us. But I have seen too much of this sort of 
thing to take it altogether lightly. That's the way 

24 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

this investigating goes. One thing corroborates 
another. ' Impersonation' in the case of a public 
medium may mean nothing — on the part of a psy- 
chic like your friend Mrs. Harris it means a very 
great deal. In support of this, let me tell you of a 
similar case. I have a friend, a perfectly trust- 
worthy woman, and of keen intelligence, whose 
'stunt,' as she laughingly calls it, is to impersonate 
nameless and suffering spirits who have been hurled 
into outer darkness by reason of their own misdeeds 
or by some singular chance of their taking off. 
My friend seems to be able in some way to free 
these poor 'earth-bound souls' and send them 
flying upward to some heaven. It's all very 
creepy," I added, warningly. 

"Oh, delightful! Let it be very creepy," called 
Mrs. Quigg. 

"To begin with, my friend is as keen-eyed, as 
level-headed as any woman I know — the last person 
in the world to be taken for a 'sensitive.' I had 
never suspected it in her; but one night she laugh- 
ingly admitted having been 'in the work' at one 
time, and I begged for a sitting. We were dining 
at her house — Jack Ross, a Miss Wilcox, and I, 
all intimate friends of hers, and she consented. 
After sitting a few minutes she turned to me and 
said: 'My "guide" is here. Be sure to keep near 
me; don't let me fall.' She still spoke smilingly, 
but I could see she was in earnest. 

3. 25 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"'You see,' she explained, 'I seem to leave the 
body and to withdraw a little distance above my 
chair. From this height I survey my material self, 
which seems to be animated by an entirely alien 
influence. Sometimes my body is moved by these 
forces to rise and walk about the room. In such 
cases it is necessary for some friend to follow close 
behind me, for between the going of "the spirit" 
and the return of my "astral self" there lies an 
appreciable interval when my body is as limp as 
an empty sack. I came very near having a bad 
fall once.' 

" ' I understand,' said I. ' I'll keep an eye on you.' 

"In a few moments a change came over her face. 
She sank into a curious negative state between 
trance and reverie. Her lips parted, and a soft 
voice came from them. She spoke to Miss Wilcox, 
who sat opposite her: 'Sister — I am very happy. 
I am surrounded by children. It is beautiful here 
in the happy valley — warm and golden — and oh, 
the merry children!' 

"Miss Wilcox was deeply moved by this message 
and for a moment could not reply. At length she 
recovered her voice and asked, 'Are you speaking 
to me ?' 

'Yes. I am worried about mother. She is 
sick. Go to her. She needs help. Good-bye!' 
The smile faded; my friend's face resumed its im- 
personal calm. 

26 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"'Did you recognize the spirit?' I asked. 

"Miss Wilcox hesitated, but at last said: 'My 
sister was active in the work of caring for orphan 
children. But that proves nothing. Anna may 
have known it — there is no test in this. It may be 
only mind-reading.' 

"'You are quite right,' I replied. 'But the 
message concerning your mother can be tested, 
can it not ?' 

"At this moment the face of the psychic squared, 
and a deep, slow voice came pulsing forth. 'Why 
do you wilfully blind your eyes ? The truth will 
prevail. Mystery is all about you. Why doubt 
that which would comfort you ?' 

"'Who are you?' I inquired. 

"'I am Theodore Parker, the psychic's control,' 
was the answer. 

"Soon after this my friend opened her eyes and 
smiled. 'Do you know what you've said ?' I asked. 
'Yes, I always have a dim notion of what is go- 
ing on,' she answered, 'but why I am moved to 
speak and act as I do I don't know. It is just the 
same when I write automatically. I know when 
I do it, but I can't see the connection between my 
own mind and the writing. It is as if one lobe of 
my brain kept watch over the action of the other.' 

"She now passed into another period of immo- 
bility and so sat for a long time. Suddenly her face 
hardened, became coarse, common, vicious in line. 

27 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Flinging out her hand, she struck me in the breast. 
'What do you want of me ?' she demanded, in the 
voice of a harridan. 'What are you all doing here ? 
You're a nice lot of fools.' 

"'Who are you?' I asked. 

"'You know who I am,' she answered, with a 
hoarse laugh. 'A sweet bunch you are! Where's 
Jim?' 

"'Does any one recognize this "party" ?' I asked. 
'Ross, this must be one of your set.' 

"Ross laughed, and the 'influence,' thrusting 
her face close to his, blurted out, menacingly: 
'Don't know me, hey ? Well, here I am. I wanted 
a show, and they let me in. What you going to 
do about it ?' 

"I reckon you lit in the wrong door-yard,' I 
replied; 'nobody knows you here. Skiddoo!' 

"She made an ugly face at me, and struck at me 
with her claw-like hand. 'I'd like to smash you!' 

"'Good-bye,' said I. 'Get out!' And she was 
gone. 

"Before a word could be spoken, a look of hope- 
less, heart-piercing woe came over my friend's face. 
She began to moan and wring her hands most 
piteously. 'Oh, where am I ?' she wailed. 'It is 
so cold, so cold! So cold and dark! Won't some- 
body help me ? Oh, help me!' 

"I gently asked: 'Who are you? Can't you tell 
us vour name ?' 

28 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"'Oh, I don't know, I can't tell,' moaned the 
voice. ' It's all so dark and cold and lonely. Please 
tell me where I am. I've lost my name. All is so 
dark and cold. Oh, pity me! Let me come in. 
Let me feel your light. I'm freezing! Oh, pity 
me. I'm so lonely. It's so dark.' 

"'Come in,' I said. 'We will help you.' 

"The hands of the psychic crept timidly up my 
arm and touched my cheek. 'Thank you! Thank 
you! Oh, the cheer! Oh, the light!' she cried, 
ecstatically. 'I see! I know! Good-bye!' And 
with a sigh of ecstasy the voice ceased. 

"I can hardly express to you the vivid and yet 
sombre impression this made upon me. It was 
as if a chilled and weary bird, having winged its 
way from the winter's midnight into a warm room, 
had been heartened and invigorated, had rushed 
away confident and swift to the sun-lands of the 
South. 

"One by one other 'earth-bound souls' who, 
from one cause or another, were ' unable to find 
their way upward,' came into our ken like chilled 
and desperate bats condemned to whirl in endless 
outer darkness and silence — poor, abortive, anom- 
alous shadows, whose voices pleaded piteously for 
release. Nameless, agonized, bewildered, they clung 
like moths to the light of our psychic. 

"Some of them appeared to be suffering all the 
terrors of the damned, and as they moaned and 

29 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

pleaded for light, the lovely face of my friend was 
convulsed with agony and her hands fluttered about 
like wounded birds. Singular conception! Won- 
derful power of suggestion! 

"At length, with a glad cry, the last of these 
blind souls saw, sighed with happiness, and seemed 
to vanish upward, as if into some unfathomable, 
fourth-dimension heaven. Then the sweet first 
spirit, the woman with the glad children, returned 
to say to Miss Wilcox, 'Be happy — George is com- 
ing back to you.' 

"After she passed, my friend opened her eyes 
as before, clearly, smilingly, and said, 'Have you 
had enough ?' 

"Plenty/ said I. 'You nearly took my eye out 
in your dramatic fervor. I must say your ghosts 
are most unhappy creatures.' 

"She became very serious. 'Please don't think 
that these spirits are my affinities. My work is 
purely philanthropic, so Theodore Parker used to 
tell mother. It was my duty, he said, to comfort the 
cheerless, to liberate the earth-bound, and so I had 
to have these poor creatures waiting around. That's 
why I gave it up. It got to be too dreadful. We nev- 
er could tell what would come next. Murderers and 
barnburners and every other accursed spirit seemed 
to be privileged to come into my poor empty house 
and abuse it, although Parker and his band prom- 
ised to protect me. I stopped it. I will not sit 

30 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

again/ she said, firmly. 'I don't like it. It would 
be bad enough to be dominated by one's dead 
friends, or the dead friends of one's friends, but to 
be helpless in the hands of all the demons and 
suicides and miscreants of the other world is in- 
tolerable. And if I am not dominated by dead 
people, I fear I am acting in response to the minds 
of vicious living people, and I don't like that. It's 
a dreadful feeling — can't you see it is ? — -this be- 
ing open to every wandering gust of passion. I 
wouldn't let any one of my children be controlled 
for the world. Don't ask me to sit again, and 
please don't let my friends know of my "gift." 

"Of course we promised, but the effect of that 
sitting I shall not soon forget. By-the-way, Miss 
Wilcox 'phoned and proved the truth of her mes- 
sage. Her mother really was ill and in need of 
her." 

As I closed this story, Cameron said: "Garland, 
you tell that as if you believed in it." 

"I certainly do believe in my friend. It's no 
joke with her. She is quite certain that she is 
controlled by those 'on the other side,' and that to 
submit is to lose so much of her own individuality. 
You may call it hysteria, somnambulism, hypno- 
tism, anything you like, but that certain people 
are moved subconsciously to impersonate the dead 
I am quite ready to believe. However, 'impersona- 
tion' is the least convincing (from my point of 

3i 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

view) of all the phases of mediumship. I have 
paid very little attention to it in the course of my 
investigation. It has no value as evidence. You 
are still in the tattered fringes of 'spiritism,' even 
when you have seen all that impersonation can 
show you." 

"Well, what do you suggest as the proper meth- 
od for the society ?" 

"As I told you at beginning, I have had a great 
deal of experience with these elusive 'facts,' and it 
chances that a practised though non-professional 
psychic with whom I have held man)/ baffling 
sittings, is in the city. I may be able to induce 
her to sit for us." 

"Oh, do, do!" cried Mrs. Cameron and Miss 
Brush together. 

"Who is she?" asked Miller. 

"I'll tell you more about her — next time," I said, 
tantalizingly. "She is very puzzling, I assure you. 
When and where shall we meet ?" 

"Here," said Cameron, promptly. "I'm getting 
interested. Bring on your marvels." 

"Yes," said Miller, and his mouth shut like a 
steel trap. "Bring on your faker. It won't take 
us long to expose her little game." 

"Bigger scientific bigots than you have been con- 
quered," I retorted. "All right. I'll see what I 
can do. We'll meet one week from to-day." 

"Yes," said Cameron; "come for dinner." 
32 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

As I was going out, Mrs. Quigg detained me. 
"If it had been anybody but nice little Mrs. Harris, 
I should say that you had made this all up between 
you. As it is, I guess I'll have to admit that there 
is something in thought transference and hypnotism. 
You were her control" 

"That will serve for one evening," I retorted. 
"I'll make you doubt the existence of matter before 
we finish this series of sittings." And with this 
we parted. 



II 



I WAS a little late at Cameron's dinner-party, 
and no sooner had I shown my face inside the 
door than a chorus of excited inquiry arose. 

"Where is the medium ?" demanded Cameron. 

"Don't tell us you haven't got her!" exclaimed 
Mrs. Quigg. 

"I haven't her in my pocket, but she has prom- 
ised to appear a little later," I replied, serenely. 

"Why didn't you bring her to dinner?" asked 
Mrs. Cameron. 

"Well, she seemed a little shy, and, besides, I was 
quite sure you would all want to discuss her, and 
so—" 

"Yes, do tell us about her. Who is she ? Does 
she perform for a living ? What kind of a person 
are we to expect ?" volleyed Miss Brush. 

To this I replied: "She is a native of the Middle 
West — Ohio, I believe. No, she does not do this 
for a living; in fact, she makes no charge for her 
services. She is very gentle and lady- like, and 
much interested, naturally, in converting you to 
spiritualism; for, like most psychics, she believes 

34 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

in spirits. She says her * controls' have especially 
urged her to give me sittings. I am highly flattered 
to think the spirit folk should consider me so par- 
ticularly valuable to their cause. Seriously, I hope 
you will appreciate the wonderful concessions Mrs. 
Smiley is making in thus putting herself into our 
hands with the almost certain result of being dis- 
credited by some of us. I believe she really is doing 
it from a sense of duty, and is entitled to be treated 
fairly." 

"Has she been in the business long ?" asked Mrs. 
Quigg, with lurking sarcasm. 

"Ever since she was about ten years old, I be- 
lieve, but she sits only 'to spread the glad tidings. '" 

"Is she married ?" 

"Yes, and has a devoted husband, and a nice 
little American village home. I know, for she sent 
me a photograph of it. She has two children 'in 
the other world.' Please don't think all mediums 
the ignorant and vicious harpies which the news- 
papers make them out to be. I know several who 
are very nice, serious-minded women." 

At this point dinner was announced, and the 
dining-room became the field of a hot verbal war- 
fare. The members of the society were all present 
excepting Mrs. Harris, who had been greatly upset 
by her own performance. Bart Brierly, the painter, 
was there to defend the mystery of life against our 
scientific friend Miller, whose conception of the 

35 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

universe was very definite indeed. Mrs. Quigg 
supported Miller. Young Howard was everywhere 
in the lists, and his raillery afforded Cameron a great 
deal of amusement. 

I contented myself with listening for the first 
half-hour, but at last took occasion to say to Miller: 
"Like all violent opponents of the metapsychical, 
you know very little of the subject you are discus- 
sing. To sustain this contention, let me ask if 
you have ever read the account of Sir William 
Crookes's experiments with psychic force ?" 

Miller confessed that he had not. "I have 
avoided doing so, for I respect Crookes as a chem- 
ist," he added. 

I continued: "Crookes began by pooh-poohing 
the whole subject of spiritualism, very much as you 
do, Miller; but after three years of rigid investiga- 
tion, he was forced to announce himself convinced 
of the truth of many of the so-called spirit phenom- 
ena. It is instructive to recall that when he was 
willing to hazard his scientific reputation on a re- 
port of this character to the Royal Society, of which 
he was a member, his paper was thrown out. The 
secretary refused even to enter it upon the files of 
the institution." 

"I know about that," replied Miller, "and I 
consider the secretary justified. To his thinking, 
Crookes had lost his head." 

"No matter what he thought," I replied. "Any 
36 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

paper by a man of Crookes's standing, with his 
knowledge of chemistry and of life, and his long 
training in exact observation, should have been 
considered. The action of the secretary was due 
simply to prejudice, and many of those who voted 
to ignore that report are to-day more than half 
convinced that Sir William has been justified. 
Each of his experiments has been repeated and his 
findings verified by scientific men of Europe. It 
is a pleasure to add that our own Smithsonian In- 
stitution published two of his speculative papers 
some years ago. So it goes — the heresy of to-day 
is the orthodoxy of to-morrow." 

"Didn't Crookes afterward repudiate that early 
report ?" asked Miller. 

"On the contrary, in 1898, upon being elected 
to the presidency of the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science, he said (I think I can 
recall almost his exact words): 'No incident in my 
scientific career is more widely known than the part 
I took in certain psychic researches. Thirty years 
have passed since I published an account of experi- 
ments tending to show that outside our scientific 
knowledge there exists a force exercised by intelli- 
gences differing from the ordinary intelligence com- 
mon to mortals. This fact in my life is well under- 
stood by those who honored me with the invitation 
to become your president. Perhaps among my 
audience some may feel curious as to whether I 

37 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

shall speak out or be silent. I elect to speak, al- 
though briefly. I have nothing to retract. I ad- 
here to my published statements. Indeed, I might 
add much thereto.' And when you realize that 
this includes his astounding experience with * Katie 
King,' his words become tremendous in their sig- 
nificance." 

"What was the 'Katie King' experience?" asked 
Mrs. Cameron. "I never heard of it." 

"It is a long and very interesting story, but in 
substance it is this: While in a condition of con- 
temptuous disbelief as to the alleged phenomena of 
spiritualism, Sir William chanced to witness a 
seance wherein a young girl named Florence Cook 
was the medium. Her doings so puzzled and in- 
terested him that he went again and again to see 
her. Dissatisfied with the conditions under which 
the wonders took place, he asked Miss Cook to 
come to his house and sit for him and his friends. 
This she did. She was a mere girl at the time, 
about seventeen years of age, and yet she baffled 
this great chemist and all his assistants. You some- 
times hear people say, 'Yes, but he was in his 
dotage.' He was not. He was in his early prime. 
He brought to bear all his thirty years' training in 
exact observation, and all the mechanical and elec- 
trical appliances he could devise, without once de- 
tecting anything deceitful." 

" Even in the ' Katie King' episode ?" asked Harris. 
38 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Even Katie stood the test. But before going 
into that, let me tell you some of his other experi- 
ments. He says (among other amazing things) 
that he has seen a chair move on its own account, 
without contact with a medium. He saw Daniel 
Home — another medium with whom he had sittings 
— raised by invisible power completely from the 
floor of the room. * Under rigid test condition,' 
he writes, 'I have seen a solid, self-luminous body 
the size of an egg float noiselessly about the room!' 
But wait! I will quote from my notes his exact 
words." Here I produced my note-book, and read 
as follows: "'I have seen a luminous cloud float- 
ing upward toward a picture. Under the strictest 
test conditions, I have more than once had a solid, 
self-luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand 
by a hand which did not belong to any person in the 
room, hi the light, I have seen a luminous cloud 
hover over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a 
sprig off, and carry it to a lady; and on some oc- 
casions I have seen a similar luminous cloud con- 
dense to the form of a hand and carry small objects 
about. During a seance in full light, a beautifully 
formed small hand rose up from an opening in a 
dining-table and gave me a flower. This occurred 
in the light in my own room, while I was holding 
the medium's hands and feet. I have retained 
one of these perfectly life-like and graceful (spirit) 
hands in my own, firmly resolved not to let it es- 

39 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

cape, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into 
vapor, and faded in that manner from my grasp/ " 

"Oh, come now," shouted Howard, "you're jok- 
ing! Crookes couldn't have written that." 

I continued to read: "' Under satisfactory test 
conditions, I have seen phantom forms and faces 
— a phantom form came from the corner of the 
room, took an accordion in its hand, and glided 
about the room playing the instrument.'" 

As I paused, Harris said: "Was all that in his 
report to the Royal Society ?" 

"It was." 

"Well, I don't wonder they thought he was 
crazy. The whole statement is preposterous." 

" But that is not all," I hastened to say. "Under 
rigid conditions scales were depressed without con- 
tact, and a flower, separating itself from a bouquet, 
passed through a solid table." 

Miller made a gesture of angry disgust. "To 
save the reputation of a really great scientist, don't 
quote any more of that insane dreaming." 

"I didn't know any one but campers in 'Lily 
Dale' could be so bug-house," added Howard. 

I went on. "Crookes might have induced his 
brother scientists at least to listen to his report had 
he stopped with this. But he proceeded to say 
that he had witnessed the magic birth of a senti- 
ent, palpable, intelligent human being, who walked 
about in his household, conversing freely, while 

40 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the medium, from whom the spirit form sprang, 
lay in the cabinet like one dead. It was his account 
of this 'spirit,' who called herself ' Katie King,' that 
caused the whole scientific world to jeer at the great 
chemist as a man gone mad." 

"We have a right to draw the line between 
Crookes the chemist and Crookes the befuddled 
dupe," insisted Miller. 

Mrs. Cameron drew a long breath. "Do you 
mean to say that this 'Katie King' phantom actu- 
ally talked with the people in the room ? Does Sir 
William Crookes say that ?" 

"Yes. Over and over again he declares that 
'Katie King' appeared as real as any one else in 
his house. He becomes quite lyrical in description 
of her beauty. She was like a pearl in her purity. 
Her flesh seemed a sublimation of ordinary human 
flesh. And the grace of her manner was so ex- 
traordinary that Lady Crookes and all who saw 
her became deeply enamoured of her. She allowed 
some of them to kiss her, and Crookes himself was 
permitted to grasp her hand and walk up and down 
the room with her." 

" How was she dressed ?" asked Mrs. Brush. 

"There! Now we are getting at the essentials," 
I exclaimed. "Usually in white with a turban." 

" Did she look like the medium ?" 

"She was utterly unlike Miss Cook in several 
physical details. She was half a head taller, her 
4 41 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

face was broader, her ears had not been pierced, and 
she was free from certain facial scars that Miss Cook 
bore; and once when Miss Cook was suffering from 
a severe cold, Sir William tested 'Katie King's' 
lungs and found them in perfect health. On sev- 
eral occasions he and several of his friends, among 
them eminent scientists, saw 'Katie' and the me- 
dium together, and at last succeeded in photo- 
graphing them both on the same plate, although 
never with Miss Cook's face exposed, because of 
the danger, to one in a trance, from the shock of 
a flashlight." 

"I don't take anv stock in that excuse," said 
Howard. "But go on, I like this." 

"For months the great chemist brought all his 
skill to bear on Miss Cook's mediumship without 
detecting any fraud or finding any solution of the 
mystery. The sittings, which took place in his 
own library, w T ere under his own conditions, and 
he had the assistance of several young and clever 
physicists, and yet he could not convict Miss Cook 
of double-dealing. The story of the final seance, 
when 'Katie King' announced her departure, is 
as affecting as a scene in a play. She had said 
that her real name was 'Annie Morgan,' but that 
in the spirit world she was known as ' Katie King. 
She came, she said, to do a certain work, and now, 
after three years, that work was done, and she must 
return to the spirit world." 

42 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"What was that work ?" 

"To convince the world of the spirit life, I imag- 
ine. * When the time came for " Katie" to take her 
farewell/ writes Crookes, 'I asked that she would 
let me see the last of her. Accordingly when she 
had called each of the company up to her and had 
spoken a few words in private, she gave some gen- 
eral directions for the future guidance and pro- 
tection of Miss Cook. From these, which were 
taken down in shorthand, I quote the following: 
"Mr. Crookes has done very well throughout, and 
I leave Florrie [the medium], with the greatest con- 
fidence, in his hands." Having concluded her di- 
rections, " Katie" invited me into the cabinet with 
her, and allowed me to remain until the end.'" 

"Touching confidence!" interrupted Harris. 

"'After closing the curtain she conversed with 
me for some time, and then walked across to where 
Miss Cook was lying senseless on the floor. Stoop- 
ing over her, "Katie" touched her and said: 
"Wake up, Florrie, wake up! I must leave you 
now." 

"'Miss Cook then woke, and tearfully entreated 
" Katie" to stay a little time longer. 

"'"My dear, I can't; my work is done. God 
bless you," " Katie" replied, and then continued 
speaking to Miss Cook for several minutes. For 
several minutes the two were conversing with each 
other, till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her 

43 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

speaking. Following " Katie's" instructions, I then 
came forward to support Miss Cook, who was fall- 
ing onto the floor, sobbing hysterically. I looked 
round, but the white-robed "Katie" had gone, 
never to return to the earth-plane.'" 

I glanced about the table at my silent listeners, 
and added: "Could anything be more dramatic 
than this sad farewell ? Evidently the fourth di- 
mension is both near and very far." 

All the women were deeply impressed with this 
story, but to Miller it was as idle as the blowing of 
the wind. "The man was duped. It is absolutely 
impossible to think that he was not grossly de- 
ceived." 

" Wait a moment," said I. " I defy you or any man 
to remain unchanged by it. The world is just catch- 
ing up to this brave pioneer. At that time there were 
very few scientific men in the metapsychical field. 
Sir William stood almost alone. But public sen- 
timent changed rapidly as the years passed. The 
English Society for Psychical Research was formed, 
and one by one Wallace, Lodge, and other scientific 
men were convinced of the truth of these phenom- 
ena. In Europe, as early as 1853, the work was 
taken up in the true scientific spirit, and Professor 
Marc Thury and the Count de Gasparin completely 
demonstrated the fact of telekinesis; and at about 
the same time that the Dialectical Society was get- 
ting into action, Flammarion, the astronomer, took 

44 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

up his study of the subject. But it was not until 
1 89 1 that anything like Crookes's searching analysis 
was made of a medium. This important sitting — 
a sitting which marks an epoch in science — took 
place in Milan, and was attended, among others, 
by Lombroso and Richet. For the first time, so 
far as is known, a flash-light photograph was 
taken of a table floating in the air." 

At this moment the bell rang, and Mrs. Cameron 
exclaimed: "There! that may be your wonder- 
worker." 

I looked at my watch. "I shouldn't wonder. 
She is a prompt little person." 



Ill 

WE trooped into the sitting-room, where Mrs. 
Smiley, a plain little woman with a sweet 
mouth and bright black eyes, was awaiting us. 
She was perceptibly abashed by the keen glances 
that the men directed upon her, but her manners 
were those of one natively thoughtful and refined. 
She made an excellent impression on every one. 

"Did you bring your magic horn, Mrs. Smiley ?" 
I asked, to relieve her embarrassment. 

"Oh yes!" she answered, brightly. "I carry 
that just as a fiddler carries his fiddle — ready for a 
tune at any moment." 

She brought a large package from the foot of 
the sofa and gave it to me. I took it, but turned 
it over to Miller. " Here, open this parcel yourself, 
Mr. Scientist. I want you to be satisfied as to its 
character." 

Miller undid the package as cautiously as if it 
were an infernal machine. As the paper opened 
and fell away, a short, truncated cone of tin was 
disclosed, with another smaller one loosely held 
within it. The two sections, when adjusted s made 

4 6 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

a plain megaphone, about twenty-four inches in 
length and some five inches in diameter at the 
larger end. 

"What do you do with that?" asked Mrs. Cam- 
eron. 

In a perfectly matter-of-fact way Mrs. Smiley 
replied: "Many of the spirit voices are very faint, 
and cannot be heard without this horn. I am 
what they call a 'trumpet medium/ " she added, 
in further explanation. 

"Do you mean to say spirits speak through that 
horn ?" 

"Yes. That is my 'phone.'" 

The ladies looked at one another, and Harris 
said: "Isn't it rather absurd to expect an immaterial 
mouth to speak through a tin tube, like the grocer's 
boy ?" 

She smiled composedly. "I suppose it seems 
so to you, but to me it just happens." 

I set briskly to work arranging the library for 
the circle. In the middle of the room I placed a 
plain oaken table, which had been procured spe- 
cially for the sitting. On this I stood the tin horn, 
upright on its larger end; beside it I laid a pad, a 
pencil, and a small slate. 

"Mrs. Smiley, you are to sit here," I said, draw- 
ing an arm-chair to the end of the table nearest the 
wall. She took her seat submissively; and looking 
around upon my fellow-members with a full knowl- 

47 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

edge of what was in their minds, I remarked: "If 
all goes well to-night, this little woman, alone and 
unaided, except by this megaphone, will utterly con- 
found you. We have had many sittings. We un- 
derstand each other perfectly. I am going to treat 
her as if she were an unconscious trickster. I am 
going to use every effort to discover how she accom- 
plishes these mysterious results, and Miller is to be 
notably remorseless. We are going to concede 
(for the present) the dim light required. I don't 
like this, but Mrs. Smiley is giving us every other 
condition, and as this is but a trial sitting, we grant 
it." I turned to Miller. "The theory is that light 
acts in direct opposition to the psychic force, weak- 
ening it unaccountably. Nevertheless, darkness is 
not absolutely essential. Maxwell secured many 
convincing movements in the light, and no doubt 
we shall be able to do so later." 

"Who is Maxwell?" asked Miss Brush. 

"Dr. Joseph Maxwell, Deputy Attorney-General 
of the Court of Appeals at Bordeaux and Doctor of 
Medicine. He is a noted experimenter with psy- 
chic forces. Indeed, he has the power himself. 
Now, Mrs. Smiley, I wish to begin my tests by tying 
your wrists to the arms of your chair. May I do 
so ?" 

"Certainly," she cheerfully answered. "You 
may padlock me, or put me in an iron cage, if you 
please. I leave it all to you." 

48 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Well, there is a certain virtue in knotting a silk 
thread, for the reason that it is almost impossible 
to untie, even in the light, and to break it, we will 
agree, invalidates the sitting. For to-night we will 
use the thread. Miller, will you watch me ?" 

"With the greatest pleasure in the world," he 
answered, "and as a scientist I am going to treat 
you as a possible confederate." 

"Very good. Let each watch the other." 

Beneath the gaze of the smiling company, I took 
from my pocket a spool of strong silk twist, and 
proceeded to fasten the psychic's wrists. Each arm 
was tied separately in such wise that she was unable 
to bring her hands together, and could not raise her 
wrists an inch from the chair. Next, with the aid 
of Mrs. Cameron, I looped a long piece of tape 
about Mrs. Smiley's ankles, knotted it to the rungs 
of the chair at the back, and nailed the loose 
ends to the floor. I then drew chalk marks on the 
floor about the chair legs, in order that any move- 
ment of the chair, no matter how slight, might 
show. Finally, I pushed the table about two feet 
away from the psychic's utmost reach. 

"With this arrangement we ought to be able to 
detect any considerable movement on your part," 
I said to my prisoner; "at any rate, I think we 
can keep you from jumping upon the table. Miller, 
you are to sit at her left; I will keep watch and 
ward at her right; the others of the society may 

49 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

take seats as they please — only the tradition is that 
the sexes should alternate. Cameron, please lock 
both doors and keep the keys in your pocket." 

As soon as we were all seated and Cameron had 
locked the doors, I asked him to turn down the 
light, which he did, grumbling: "I don't like this 
part of it." 

"Neither do I, but at a first sitting we must not 
expect too much. I am sure we shall be able to 
have more light later on. And now, while we are all 
getting into a harmonious frame of mind, suppose 
we ask Mrs. Smiley to tell us a little about herself. 
Where were you born, Mrs. Smiley ?" 

She replied, very simply and candidly: "I was 
born near Cincinnati. My father was a spiritualist 
early in the * craze,' as it was called, and I was 
about nine when I became a medium. At first we 
did not know that I was the psychic. Demons 
seemed to take possession of our house, and for a 
few weeks nothing movable was safe. After awhile 
my father became sure that I was the cause of 
these disturbances, because everywhere I went raps 
were heard: the movement of small objects near 
where I sat made me an object of aversion or of 
actual terror to my school-mates. So finally my 
father asked me to sit. I didn't want to do so at 
first, but he told me it was my duty. They used 
to tie me in every way and experiment with me. 
It was very wearisome to me, but I submitted, and 

50 



THE SHADOW, WORLD 

I have been devoted to the work ever since. After 
my father and mother died I gave up all opposi- 
tion to my gift, and now it is a great comfort to me; 
for now I get messages from my father and my 
little daughter almost every day." 

"Do they speak to you directly ?" I asked. 

"Yes. Sometimes clairaudiently, but generally 
through this cone when I sit in the dark." 

"What do you mean by speaking?" asked How- 
ard. "Do you mean they sound like actual peo- 
ple ?" 

"Just as real as you or any one," she answered. 

I was waiting to say: "Don't be in haste; you 
will all know from actual experience what she means 
by voices." 

"Have you ever seen these forces at work?" 
asked Harris. 

"No; not the way you mean. I had a terrible 
shock once that cured me of being too curious. I 
was holding an accordion under a table by its 
bellows end, as Home used to do, and while the 
playing was going on I just believed if I looked 
under the table I could see something, So I lifted 
the cover and peeped under. I didn't know any 
more for a long time. When I came to my father 
was bathing my face and rubbing my hands. I 
never tried to 'peek' after that." 

"Do you mean that they did this to punish you 
for your peeping ?" 

5i 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Yes. They don't like to have you look directly 
at them when they are at work." 

"Why?" 

" I don't know. I never was punished again. I 
didn't need it." 

"Would 'they' bat me if I were to peek ?" asked 
Howard. 

"They might not; but they refuse to 'work' while 
any one is looking." 

"All that is suspicious." 

"I know it is, but that is the way they act." 

"You believe 'they' are spirits ?" 

"I know they are," she repeated. "If I didn't, 
I would be desolate. I have been sitting now for 
over thirty years, and these friendly voices are a 
part of my life. They comfort me more than I 
can tell." 

She gave this account of herself with an air of 
quiet conviction that deeply impressed the circle, 
and at the end of her little speech I added: "She 
has agreed to put herself into our hands for a series 
of experiments, and if her health does not fail I 
think we shall be able to rival the doings of Florence 
Cook and Daniel Home, whose mediumships were 
the basis of Crookes's report. Now let each one of 
you spread his hands, or her hands, upon the table, 
just touching the little fingers, in order that a com- 
plete circuit may be established. Miller and I will 
make connection with our psychic." 

52 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"It all seems childish folly, but we'll do it," said 
Harris. 

"What may we expect to happen first, Mrs. 
Smiley ?" asked Mrs. Cameron, after we were in 
position. 

"I don't know," she answered, frankly. "I have 
very little control over these forces. Often, when 
I am most anxious, nothing happens. Please don't 
expect much of anything to-night: my first sittings 
in a new place are seldom very good, and so much 
depends upon those who make up the circle. I 
never sit without a fear that my power has gone 
never to come back." 

I helped her out in explanation: "The honest 
medium does not advertise to perform regularly, 
for the reason that this force, whatever it is, seems 
to lie almost wholly outside the will. Flammarion 
says 'it may be set down as a rule that all profes- 
sional mediums cheat.' That is putting it pretty 
strong; but it seems true that the condition which 
leads to these phenomena is a very subtle physical 
and mental adjustment, and that the slightest dis- 
traction or mental unrest defeats everything. If 
the medium is paid for her work she is too eager 
to serve, and everything tempts her to deceive. 
Furthermore, it has been proved that the psychic 
is in the very nature of the case extremely liable to 
suggestion, and the combined wills of the sitters 
focussed on one desired phenomena becomes an 

53 7 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

almost irresistible force to certain psychics. On 
the other hand, the best observers say that the most 
striking proofs of spiritualism lies in the fact that 
the most amazing phenomena come in opposition 
to the will of both the psychic and the sitters. We 
may not secure a single movement to-night, and, 
indeed, we may have two or three barren sittings, 
but I am confident that in the end you will be sat- 
isfied. I am going to attempt to put Mrs. Smiley 
to sleep now, and when she is in her trance we can 
discuss her methods freely." 

I began to hum a low, monotonous tune, and 
one by one the others joined in the refrain; soon 
the psychic's breath became labored, and in the 
pauses of the song she moaned. At length she 
drew her hands as far away from Miller's and 
mine as the threads would permit, thus break- 
ing the circuit. 

"She is in trance," I reported. "Now we have 
nothing to do but wait. You may say anything 
you please, or tell stories or sing songs, only don't 
argue. We will remain as we are for a while, and 
if the ' guides' are dissatisfied, they will order a 
change. Generally speaking, the 'controls' are 
very notional, and when we get into full communi- 
cation with 'them' the entire present arrangement 
may be broken up. The theory is that all success 
is due to the co-operation of those 'on the other 
side.' " 

54 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"It looks to me like a plain case of hypnotism 
from this side," remarked Harris. 

"Aren't there any fixed rules to the game?" 
asked Howard. 

"After many years' exhaustive study of these 
antic spirits (approaching them always from the 
naturalistic side), Maxwell deduces certain helpful 
rules: 'Use a small room,' he says, 'and have it 
warm. Medium and sitters must not have cold 
hands or feet.'" 

"I can understand the psychic having cold feet 
now and then," interjected Harris. 

"Maxwell finds dry air and clear weather most 
favorable; rainy and windy weather often cause 
failures. There seems to be some connection with 
the electrical condition of the atmosphere. After 
proving that a white light deters phenomena, he 
uses green, violet, or yellow screens for his lamps. 
'Any kind of a table will do for the raps, or for 
levitation,' he says, 'but one with a double top 
seems to give best results.' His sitters use wooden 
chairs with cane seats, and my own experience 
is that a bare floor helps. He especially directs 
that the guide be consulted — 'let the phenomena 
come as spontaneously as possible,' he adds." 

"Does he find this sandwiching of the sexes 
helpful ?" 

"Yes. He says six or eight people, men and 
women alternating, make the best circle. 'Take 

55 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

things seriously, but not solemnly,' he advises. 
'Don't argue; address the "control," and follow 
his advice. Avoid confusion by electing a director 
and asking for only one thing at a time. Keep 
the same people in the group for at least six sittings. 
Sit in a circle and touch hands. Be patient and 
good-tempered. A worried, irritated, sullen me- 
dium is a poor instrument. Finally' — and this is 
most important — 'don't overwork the medium.' 
And with this important statement he ends: 'I am 
persuaded of the absolute harmlessness of these ex- 
periments^ provided they are properly conducted? ' : 

"I am glad to know that," said Mrs. Quigg. 
"After seeing Mrs. Harris's trance, I was in doubt." 

"Maxwell's hints are extremely valuable to me," 
I continued, "for they confirm my own methods, 
some of which I had to learn by tedious experience. 
If I had known, for instance, the folly of allowing 
everybody to quiz the psychic, I might have been 
spared many hours of tiresome sitting. Maxwell 
is, indeed, an ideal investigator — he has made a 
great advance in methods, and his conclusions, 
though tentative, are most suggestive. No unprej- 
udiced reader can finish his book, Metapsychical 
Phenomena^ without feeling that its author is a 
brave and fearless writer, as well as a cautious and 
sane reasoner. His published experience throws 
a flood of light on mediums and their puzzling 
peculiarities." 

56 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"But it seems to me those rules give the medium 
and his 'guides' the free hand," said Miller, dis- 
contentedly. 

"By no means," I retorted. "Maxwell plainly 
says, 'Where the "control" is insisting upon some- 
thing which I do not like, I politely resist, and end 
by getting my own way.' Note the 'politely.' In 
short, he recognizes that a genuine medium is a 
very precious instrument, and he does not begin 
by clubbing him — or her — into submission. For 
all their wondrous powers, the people who possess 
these powers are very weak. They are not allowed 
to make anything more than a living out of the 
practise of the magic, and they live under the threat 
of having the power withdrawn. They are help- 
less in the face of a challenge to produce the phe- 
nomena, and yet the hidden forces are themselves 
helpless without them — " 

"Is the table throbbing?" asked Brierly. 

"I don't feel it." 

"Have you ever had any convincing evidence of 
this psychic force — such as movement of objects 
without contact ?" asked Harris. 

"Yes. I have had a table rise at least twenty 
inches from the floor in the full light, with no one 
present but the medium and myself, and while 
our finger-tips alone touched the top. It felt as if 
it were floating in a thick and resilient liquid, and 
when I pressed upon it, it oscillated, in a curious 
5 57 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

way, as if the power were applied from below and 
in the centre of the table. The psychic was a 
young girl, and I am certain played no trick. I 
could see her feet on the floor, and her finger-tips 
were, like mine, on the top of the table. This was 
the clearest test of levitation I ever had, but the 
lifting of a pencil in independent writing is the 
same thing in effect." 

"I see you have acquired all the 'patter,' " re- 
marked Miller. 

"Oh, yes indeed; all the 'patter/ and some of 
the guile. For instance, when I want to use 'those 
who have passed on' I do so, and when I don't I 
invent means to deceive them." 

Mrs. Quigg caught me up on that. "Can you 
deceive 'them' ?" 

"I don't know that I do, really; but, at any rate, 
'they' are not always mind-readers — that I have 
proved very conclusively. In all my experience I 
have never had any satisfactory evidence of the 
clairvoyance of these manifesting intelligences." 

"I thought 'they' could read one's every 
thought." 

"I do not find that 'they' can read so much as 
one of my thoughts, and I would not invest a dollar 
on their recommendations. Seldom does so much 
as a familiar name come up in my sittings, and no 
message of any intimate sort has ever come from 
the shadow world for me. The messages are in- 

58 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

telligent, but below rather than above the average. 
'They' always seem very fallible, very human to 
me, and nothing 'they' do startles me. I have no 
patience with those who make much of the mor- 
bid side of this business. To me it is neither 
'theism' nor 'diabolism,' and is neither destruc- 
tion of an old religion or the basis of a new one — 
But all this verges on the controversial, and is 
not good for our psychic. Let's sing some good 
old tune, like 'Suwanee River' or 'Lily Dale.' We 
must keep to the genial side of conversation. Spread 
your hands wide on the table and be as comfortable 
as you'can. We may have to wait a long time now, 
all on Miller's account." 

" Because he is a sceptic ?" 

"No; because he's belligerent," I answered. "It 
doesn't matter whether you believe or not if you 
do not stir up controversy. Miller's 'suggestion' 
is adverse to the serenity of the psychic, that's 
all. The old-time sleepy back-parlor logic has 
no weight with me. Maxwell and Flammarion 
are my guides." 

For four hours we sat thus y and nothing hap- 
pened. How I kept them at it I do not now un- 
derstand, but they stayed. We sang, joked, told 
stories, gossiped in desperate effort to kill time, 
and not one rap, tap, or crackle came to guide us 
or to give indication of the presence of any un- 
usual power. Part of the time Mrs. Smiley was 

59 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

awake and sorely grieved at her failure. She under- 
stood very well the position in which I seemed to 
stand. To Miller I was a dupe, the victim of a 
trickster. He himself afterward confessed that at 
the time he almost regretted his preternatural acute- 
ness, and was ready to take himself away in order to 
let the show go on. But he didn't, and from time 
to time I encouraged our psychic by saying: "Never 
mind, Mrs. Smiley, there are other evenings to come. 
We will not despair." 

At last she sank into profound sleep, and at 
exactly twelve o'clock I heard a faint tapping on 
top of the piano, just behind Miller. "Hooray, 
here they are!" I exclaimed, with vast relief. "What 
is the matter ?" I asked of "the presence." "Aren't 
we sitting right ?" 

"No" was the answer, by means of one decided 
tap. 

"Am I right?" 

"No" answered the taps. 

I may explain at this point that in the accepted 
code of signals one tap means "No," three taps mean 
"Yes" and two taps, "Don't know" "Will try" or any 
other doubtful state of mind. One has, of course, 
to guess at the precise meaning; but one may con- 
firm one's interpretation by putting it in the form of 
a question that can be answered by " Yes" or "No." 

"Shall I change with Miller?" I asked. 

Three brisk taps made affirmative answer, 
60 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

I exchanged places with Miller, but did not 
again touch Mrs. Smiley's hand. Immediately 
thereafter the sound of soft drumming came from 
the piano at a point entirely out of reach of the 
psychic, and at my request the drummer kept time 
to my whistling. After some minutes of this foolery 
"the force" left the piano abruptly, as if with a 
leap, and dropped to the middle of the table. A 
light, fumbling noise followed, and I called out: 
"Is every hand in the circle accounted for?" 

While the members of the group were, in turn, 
assuring me of this, a small bell on the table was 
taken up and rung, and the table itself was shoved 
powerfully toward the circle and away from the 
psychic. I assure you, my sitters were profoundly 
interested now, and some of the women were 
startled. A sharp, pecking sound came upon the 
cone. I called attention to the fact that this took 
place at least six feet from the psychic, and a 
moment later, with intent to detect her in any 
movement, I leaned far forward so that my head 
came close to her breast. I could not discern the 
slightest motion; I could not even hear her breathe. 
All this, while very impressive to me, was referred 
by the others to trickery on Mrs. Smiley's part. 

At my request, the drumming on the cone kept 
time to "Dixey" and "Yankee Doodle," and at 
length I said to "the spirit": "You must have liked 
topical songs when you were on the earth-plane." 

61 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Instantly the cone was swept violently from the 
table, and a deep, jovial, strong whisper came from 
the horn to me. "I do now," was the amazing 
answer. 

"Who are you ?" I asked. 

"Wilbur Thompson" 

"Oh, it is you, is it? Well, I am glad you've 
found a voice; I felt rather helpless up to this mo- 
ment. Are we sitting right ?" 

"All right" 

"What are you going to do for us to-night ? Can 
you raise the table ?" 

"I'll try," he whispered again. 

"Are there other ' spirits' here?" 
/ es; many. 

"Can't 'they' write their names on the pad?' 

There was a moment's silence, and then the 
sound of writing began in the middle of the table 
When this had finished, I said, "Did you succeed ?" 

Again the cone rose, and another whisper, a 
fainter voice, answered: "Yes, but the writing is 
very miserable." 

The rest of the sitters were silent with amaze- 
ment till Miller said, in a tone of disgust: "That is 
of no value. It is so easy for Howard, or some one 
else, to break the circle and write or speak through 
the cone." 

"Yes, we'll have to trust one another for to- 
night," I admitted. 

62 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

The psychic now began to twist and moan and 
struggle, choking, gasping in such evident suffer- 
ing that Mrs. Cameron cried out: "Mr. Garland, 
don't you hear ? She is ill! Let me go to her!" 

"Don't be alarmed," I replied. "This struggle 
almost always precedes her strongest manifestations. 
It seems cruel to say so, but, remember, Mrs. Smiley 
has been through these paroxysms hundreds of 
times. It appears very painful and exhausting, 
but she has assured me that 'they' take care of her. 
She suffers almost no ill effects from her trance." 

Miller, living up to his character as remorseless 
scientist, remarked: "I'd like to control her hands. 
Shall I try ?" 

"Not now, not till the 'guides' consent to it," 
I replied. "It is said to be dangerous to the psy- 
chic to touch her unexpectedly." 

"I can understand that it might be inconvenient," 
remarked Harris, with biting brevity. 

Again we sat in expectant silence until several 
of the group became restless. "What is she about 
now ?" asked Cameron, wearily. 

"She is in dead trance, apparently. Please be 
patient a little while longer. Are you still with us, 
'Wilbur' r" 

I was delighted to hear the three taps that an- 
swer "Tes." 

"Will you be able to do something more for us ?" 

Tap, tap, tap — given apparently with the pencil. 

63 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

I observed: "From a strictly scientific stand- 
point, the movement of that pencil, provided it 
can be proved to have taken place without the 
agency of any known form of force, is as important 
as the fall of a mountain. It heralds a new day 
in science. Is every hand accounted for ?" Each 
answered, "Fes." At this moment there was a 
rustling at the base of the cone. "Listen! 'they' 
are at work with the horn." 

The cone rocked slowly on its base, and at last 
leaped over the shoulders of the sitters and fell 
with a crash to the floor. "Mercy on us!" gasped 
Mrs. Cameron. 

"Don't touch it! Don't move!" I called out. 
"Everybody clasp hands now. Here is a chance 
for a fine test. ' Wilbur,' can you put the cone back 
on the table ?" 

Tap, tap, answered "Wilbur." The two taps 
were given slowly, and I understood them to mean 
"Don't know" or "Will try." 

"Miller," I said, impressively, "unless some one 
of our circle is betraying us, we are having as good 
a demonstration as we could expect, barring the 
absence of light. Be watchful. ' Wilbur,' we're 
trusting to you now. Let's see what you can do." 

As I spoke, the horn, with a ringing scrape, left 
the carpet, and a moment later bumped down 
upon Mrs. Quigg's head. "Oh!" she shrieked, "it 
hit me!" 

64 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Almost immediately a breathy chuckle came 
from the horn: "Ha, ha! That shook you up a 
little, I reckon" 

The other women were frozen with horror. 
"Don't let it touch me," pleaded Miss Brush. 

And Mrs. Quigg, much shaken, called out: 
"Frank Howard, are you doing this ?" 

He was highly indignant. "Certainly not. Are 
you not holding one hand and Miss Brush the 
other? I am in-no-cent; I swear it!" 

I commented on their dialogue severely. "See 
how you all treat an event that is wonderful enough 
to convulse the National Academy of Science. I 
do not believe the psychic's hands have moved an 
inch, and yet, unless some one of you is false to his 
trust, the miraculous has happened — Are you there, 
' Wilbur ?' " I queried of the mystic presence. 

The cone swung toward me, and "Wilbur" an- 
swered: "I am, old horse." 

"Well, Wilbur, there are two bigoted scientific 
people here to-night, and I want you to put them 
to everlasting rout." 

"77/ do it, dont you worry" replied the voice, 
and the cone dropped with a bang on the table, 
again making everybody jump. 

"That brought the goose-flesh!" remarked "Wil- 
bur," with humorous satisfaction. 

I took a malicious delight in the mystification 
of mv fellows. "Go down and shake up young 

65 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Howard at the foot of the table," I suggested. 
"He is a little in the conjuring line himself. ,, 

Almost instantly Howard cried out: "The bloom- 
ing thing is touching me on the ear!" 

"Observe," called I, in the tone of a man ex- 
hibiting some kind of trained animal, "the cone 
is now at least six feet from the psychic's utmost 
reach. How do you account for that, Miller ?" 

"The boy lied," said Miller, curtly. 

Howard was offended. "I'll take that out of 
you, old chap, when we meet in the street. I am 
telling the square-toed truth. I am not doing a 
thing but hold two very scared ladies' hands." 

"Oh, come now!" I interposed. "If we are to 
be so 'tarnal suspicious of one another, we might 
just as well give up the sitting. If each of us must 
be padlocked, proof of any phenomenon is impos- 
sible." 

A firmer hand now seemed to grasp the cone, 
and a deep whisper that was almost a tone came 
from it. "Tou are right/* this new personality 
said, with measured and precise utterance. " We 
come with the best tests of a supremely important 
revelation; we come as scientists from our side of 
the line; and you scoff, and take it all as a piece of 
folly, as an entertainment. Is this just ? No, it 
is unworthy men of science?' 

"You are entirely justified in your indignation," 
I responded. "But who are you?" 

66 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"My name on the earth-plane was Mitchell." 

"I am glad to make your acquaintance, * Mr. 
Mitchell/ and your rebuke is deserved. I, for one, 
mean to proceed in this matter seriously. What 
can you do for us to-night ?" 

"Be very patient. Carry this investigation for- 
ward, and this psychic will astonish the world. 
Do not abuse her; do not tax her beyond her strength." 
He spoke with the precise and rather pedantic 
accent of an old gentleman nurtured on the classics, 
and produced upon me a distinct impression of 
age and serious demeanor utterly different from the 
rollicking, not too refined "Wilbur." 

"I will see that she is treated fairly, 'Mr. Mitch- 
ell,' but of course this is not a rigid test. Will 
you be able to permit conditions more convinc- 
ing?" 

"Yes, very much more convincing" he replied, 
slowly and ponderously, "but do not worry the in- 
strument to-night. Narrow your circle; be harmoni- 
ous, and not too eager, and you will be abundantly 
rewarded." 

"Won't you tell me who you were on the earth- 
plane ?" 

"/ was a friend of the father of the instrument," 
he answered. 

The horn returned to the table quietly, and 
young Howard was the first to speak. "That is 
a fine piece of ventriloquism, any way you look 

6 7 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

at it," said he. "It is a nice trick to give that pe- 
culiar tinny sound to a whisper." 

"So far as I can judge, so far as my sense of 
hearing goes (and I have kept my ear close to the 
psychic's face), Mrs. Smiley has not moved, nor 
uttered a sound. What is your verdict, Mr. Cock- 
sure Scientist ?" 

For the first time Miller's voice indicated some 
slight hesitation. "I haven't been able to detect 
any movement on the part of the psychic," he re- 
plied, "but of course I can't answer for the rest of 
the company. The performance has no scientific 
value. In the dark, deceit is easy. Harris may 
be the ventriloquist." 

"Why not accuse the arch-conspirator of us all, 
our director ?" exclaimed Mrs. Quigg. 

"You flatter me," I responded. "If I could 
produce those voices I would go on the vaudeville 
stage to-morrow. I give you my word I am acting 
in entire good faith. I am quite as eager for the 
truth as any of you. — But, hark! the cone is on the 
wing again." 

The megaphone was indeed moving, as if a weak, 
unskilled hand were struggling with it, and at last 
it swung feebly into the air, and a whisper that was 
hardly more than a breath was directed toward 
Mrs. Quigg: "Daughter!" 

"Are you speaking to me ?" she asked, in a voice 
that trembled a little. 

68 



THE SHADOW WORLD 



The answer was but a sibilant sigh : " Tes." 



"Who are you ?" 

"Mother." 

The answer was so faint that no one save Mrs. 
Quigg could distinguish the word. Almost at the 
same moment I caught the sound of other moving 
lips in the air just before me. "Who is it?" I 
asked. Like a little, hopeless sigh the answer came: 
"Jessie." This was the name of my younger 
sister. Then the cone dropped as though falling 
from exhausted hands, and I had no further mes- 
sage from this "spirit." 

As we waited breathlessly the clear, silver-sweet 
voice of a little girl was heard by every one at the 
table. "Good-evening, everybody. I am Maud; I 
came with my mamma. I have come to ask you to 
be very kind to her." 

" I am very glad to hear you, ' Maud,' " I an- 
swered. "Are there other spirits present?" 

"Yes, many, many spirits. My grandpa is here; 
he is treating my mamma so that she will not be 
sick. Some one is here to see you, but is too weak to 
speak. My grandpa says \ue are trusting you.' ' 

With astonishing clearness this voice created in 
my mind (not as light would create it) the vision 
of a self-contained, womanly little girl, whose voice 
and accent formed a curious silvery replica of the 
pyschic's, and yet I could not say that the psychic's 
vocal organs gave out these words. At last she said 

6 9 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Good-bye" and the cone was softly laid upon the 
table. 

All of this was performed in profound silence. 
There was no sound in the cone, except that of 
the voice, no rustle of garments, no grasp of fingers 
on the tin; and though I leaned far over, and once 
more placed my ear close to the psychic's lips, I 
could not trace the slightest movement connecting 
her with the movements on the table. I had the 
conviction at the moment that she sat in a death- 
like trance at my side. 

A few moments later the cone was jammed to- 
gether and thrown upon the floor — a movement, I 
had learned to know, that announced that the sit- 
ting was ended. 

While the sitters still waited, I said: "Now, Cam- 
eron, you may turn on the gas, but do so very 
slowly. Mrs. Smiley seems in deep sleep, and 
we are warned not to startle her." 

When the light became strong enough to see a 
form, we found our psychic sitting limply, her head 
drooping sidewise, her eyes closed, her face white 
and calm. The cone was lying not far from her 
chair, separated into two parts. The threads that 
bound her to her seat were to all appearance pre- 
cisely as at the beginning of the sitting, except that 
they were deeply sunk into the flesh of her wrists. 
Her chair had not moved a hair's-breadth from 
the chalk-marks on the floor. 

70 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

A moment later she opened her eyes, and, smiling 
rather wanly, asked of me: "Did anything hap- 
pen r 

"Oh yes, a great deal. * Wilbur' came, and 
'Maud,' and 'Mr. Mitchell.'" 

"I am very glad," she answered, with a faint, 
happy smile. 

Mrs. Cameron bent to her pityingly. "How do 
you feel ?" 

"Very numb, but I'll be all right in a very short 
time. My wrists hurt; your thread is very tight. 
My arms always swell. Please give me a drink 
of water." 

As I held the glass to her lips I was conscience- 
smitten to think that for five hours she had been 
sitting in this constrained position — a martyr to 
science; but I deferred the moment of her release 
till Miller had examined every bond. I used a 
small pair of scissors to cut the thread out of the 
deep furrows in her wrist, and it took a quarter of 
an hour of chafing to restore her arms to their nor- 
mal condition, all of which had a convincing effect 
upon the doubters. 

Miss Brush was indignant. "I think it is a 
shame the way you have treated your psychic." 

"Oh, this is nothing," responded Mrs. Smiley. 
"I'd be unhappy and uneasy if you didn't tie me. 
I'm like the old man's chickens (you've heard the 
story ?) : he had moved so much that the chickens, 

7i 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

whenever they saw him put a cover on his wagon, 
would lie down and cross their feet to be tied." 

After Mrs. Cameron had taken Mrs. Smiley to 
the dining-room for a cup of tea, the rest of us re- 
mained staring at one another. 

"Now, which of us did that ?" I asked. 

"So far as the psychic was concerned, I don't 
see how she could have had any hand in it," said 
Miller. " But, then, it was all in the dark." 

I had to admit that this diminished the value 
of the experiment. "But now listen," I said: "as 
we all seem to be suspicious of one another, I pro- 
pose that we resort to a process of elimination. I 
shall take ' Mitchell's ' advice and narrow the circle. 
Howard, you are a suspect. You are ruled out 
of the next sitting." 

"Oh no," protested Howard. "That isn't fair. 
I did nothing, I swear!" 

"You admit being a prestidigitator?" 

"Yes, but I had nothing to do with this per- 
formance." 

" Nevertheless, so far as conclusive proof is con- 
cerned, your presence in the circle invalidates it. 
Now I propose that Mrs. Smiley go to Miller's 
house, with no one present but Mr. and Mrs. Cam- 
eron and Mr. and Mrs. Miller. If we secure these 
same phenomena under Miller's conditions, we 
will then readmit one by one the entire member- 
ship of the society." 

72 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Mrs. Quigg resented being left out, and I pre- 
tended surprise. 

"I thought from what you had said that these 
'dark shows' were of no value ?" 

'The next one ought to have decided value if 
Professor Miller has any share in the test," she an- 
swered, quickly. "I believe in him." 

"And not in me? That's a nice thing to say." 

"I mean in his method. He is a cold, calm, 
merciless" scientist. You're a man of imagination." 

"Thank you," said I. "My critics would take 
issue with you there. However, if we get anywhere 
in this campaign we must begin with the smallest 
possible circle and slowly enlarge it. We hope also 
to increase the amount of light." 

After some further argument, Cameron settled 
the matter by saying: "Garland is right; and, to 
show my own scientific temper, I rule Mrs. Cameron 
and myself out of the next sitting. That will put 
the whole problem up to Miller and Garland." 

Miller and I walked away to the club together, 
pondering deeply on the implications of the night's 
performance. 

"I don't see how it was done," Miller repeated. 
"Certainly she did not rise from her chair, not for 
an instant, and yet to believe that she did not have 
a hand in what took place is to admit the impos- 
sible. You have had other sittings with her, haven't 
you ? You believe in her ?" 

6 n 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Yes, I think she is sincere, but possibly self- 
deceived. The fact that she is willing to put her- 
self into our hands in this way is most convincing." 

"There is nothing of the trickster about her ap- 
pearance, and yet I wish she had permitted us to 
hold her hands to-night." 

"Miller," said I, earnestly, "if you'll go with 
me into this experimentation with an open mind, 
I'll convince you that Crookes and Flammarion 
are the true scientists. It is the fashion to smile 
at Flammarion as a romantic astronomer, but I 
can't see now that he is lacking in patience and 
caution. For all his rather fervid utterances, he 
keeps his head and goes on patiently investigating. 
He has had more experience than even Crookes or 
Lombroso. For forty years he has been searching 
the dark for these strange forces, and yet he says : 
1 We create in these seances an imaginary being; 
we speak to it, and in its replies it almost always 
reflects the mentality of the experimenter. Spirits 
have taught us nothing. They have not led sci- 
ence forward a single step. ... I must say that 
if there are spirits, or beings independent of us, 
in action, they know no more than we do about 
the other world's.' And yet as regards the physical 
facts of mediumship, he sustains all the investiga- 
tors. 'These phenomena exist,' he says." 

"Candidly, Garland, what is your own belief?" 
asked Miller, a few moment's later. 

74 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

I evaded him. "I have seen enough to make 
me believe in Zollner's fourth dimension, but I 
don't. My mind is so constructed that such won- 
ders as we have seen to-night produce very little 
effect on me. They are as normal to me now as 
the popping of corn or the roasting of potatoes. 
As I say, . I have demonstrated certain of these 
physical doings. But as for belief— well, that is 
not a matter of the will, but of evidence, and the 
evidence is not yet sufficient to bring me to any 
definite conclusion; in fact, in the broad day, 
and especially the second day after I have been 
through one of these astounding experiences, I 
begin to doubt my senses. Richet speaks of this 
curious recession of belief, and admits his own in- 
ability to retain the conviction that, at the moment 
of the phenomenon, was complete. 'No sooner is 
the sitting over than my doubts come swarming 
back upon me,' he says. 'The real world which 
surrounds us, with its prejudices, its schemes of 
habitual opinions, holds us in so strong a grasp that 
we can scarcely free ourselves completely. Cer- 
tainty does not follow on demonstration, but on 
habit.' And in that saying vou have my own 
mental limitations admirably put." 

Miller plodded along by my side in silence for a 
few minutes, and then asked, abruptly: "What is 
the real reason that you keep up the fiction of the 
'guide' when you don't believe in him ?" 

75 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"For the reason that I think Mrs. Smiley hon- 
est in her faith, and that to be polite to the 'guides' 
is one of the first requisites of a successful sitting. 
Suppose the whole action to be terrestrial. Sup- 
pose each successful sitting to be, as Flammarion 
suggests, nothing but a subtle adjustment of our 
'collective consciousness' to hers. Can't you see 
how necessary it is that we should proceed with her 
full consent ? After an immense experience, follow- 
ing closely Crookes, de Rochas, Lodge, Richet, 
Duclaux, Lombroso, and Ochorowicz, Maxwell 
says: 'I believe in these phenomena, but I see no 
need to attribute them to any supernatural inter- 
vention. I am inclined to think they are produced 
by some force within ourselves — '" 
"Just what does he mean by that?" 
"I can't precisely explain. It's harder to under- 
stand than the spirit hypothesis. He himself ad- 
mits this, and goes on to say that while he is certain 
that we are in the presence of an unknown force, 
he is convinced that the phenomena will ultimately 
be found orderly, like all other facts of nature. 
'Therefore, in the critical state of research, the 
scientific problem, it seems to me, is not whether 
spiritism be true or false, but whether metapsychical 
phenomena are real or imaginary. Some future 
Newton will discover a more complete formula than 
ours,' he prophesies. 'Every natural fact should 
be studied, and if it be real, incorporated in the 

7 6 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

patrimony of knowledge.' He then adds, with 
the true scientist's humble acknowledgment of 
the infinite reach of the undiscovered universe: 
'Our knowledge is very limited and our experience 
young.' " 

"That is good talk," said Miller in reply, "but 
the question is, Does he really experiment in that 
condition of mind ? An astronomer with his eye 
to a telescope is a highly specialized and competent 
being. An astronomer listening to whispers in the 
dark may be as simple and credulous as a child." 

"I grant all that. But I see in it the greater 
reason why men like yourself should take up the 
investigation of these illusive and disturbing prob- 
lems. These phenomena, as Flammarion says, in- 
troduce us into uncharted seas, and we need the 
most cautious and clearest-sighted scientists in this 
world as pilots. Will you be one of them ?" 

" You flatter me. As a matter of fact, I'm a very 
poor sailor," he answered, with a smile. 



IV 



IF there is any one thing true in these manifes- 
tations of "spirit power," it is that the psychic 
is the agent for their production. Actively or 
passively, consciously or unconsciously, she com- 
pletes the formula — her "odic force" is the final 
chemical which permits precipitation. Sometimes 
her will to produce, her wish to serve, hinders rather 
than helps. Often when she is most persistent 
nothing happens. Sometimes an aching foot or a 
disturbing thought cuts off all phenomena. For 
the best results, apparently, the pyschic should be 
confident, easy of mind, and not too anxious to 
please. 

I approached this sitting at Miller's house with 
some fear that it might end in disappointment to 
him and be a source of chagrin to Mrs. Smiley. 
The house was strange, our attitude intensely crit- 
ical, and she was very anxious to succeed. It 
would be remarkable, indeed, if under these con- 
ditions she were able to meet us half-way. As 
we walked up the street together I did my best to 
reassure her. 

78 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"You may trust me fully, Mrs. Smiley," said I; 
"and Miller, though an inexorable scientist, is a 
gentleman. I am sure he will not insist on any 
experiment which will injure your health or give 
you needless pain. This is but our second sitting, 
and I, for one, do not expect you to be at your best." 

"I hope we will have good work," she replied, 
earnestly, "but it is always harder to sit for tests. 
Tell me about Mrs. Miller. Is she nice ? Will I 
like her?" 

"She is very gentle and considerate; you will like 
her at once. I am sure she will be a help to you." 

Her voice was very sincere as she said: "You 
don't know how anxiously I watch the make-up 
of my circle. It isn't because I am afraid of scep- 
tics; I have no fear of those who do not believe; 
but each person brings such diverse influences, and 
these influences conflict and worry me, and then 
nothing takes place. I don't want to disappoint 
you and your friends, and that may hinder me." 

The Millers occupied a modest little house far 
up-town, and were suburban, almost rural, in their 
manner of living. The chemist himself met us at 
the door, and, after greeting us cordially, ushered us 
into his library, which was a small room at the back 
of the hall. I observed that it had only one door 
and two windows, rather high up in the east wall 
— an excellent place for our sitting. 

"So this is the den of inquisition," I began; and 
79 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

turning to Mrs. Smiley, I added: "I hope you 
are not chilled by it." 

"Not a bit," she answered, cheerily. 

As Mrs. Miller, a quiet little woman (not so far 
removed from Mrs. Smiley's own type), entered 
the door and greeted us both, the psychic's face 
lighted up with pleasure. This argued well for 
our experiment. 

I could see that Miller had made careful prep- 
aration along the lines of my suggestion. A plain 
old table was standing lengthwise of the room, the 
windows were hung with shawls, and a worn hick- 
ory chair stood with arms wide-spread to seize its 
victim. After surveying the room, Mrs. Smiley 
turned to me with a note of satisfaction in her 
voice, and said: "I like this room and this furniture; 
I feel the right associations here. The air is full 
of spirit power." 

"I am glad your mind is at ease," said I, "for 
I am anxious for a very conclusive sitting. You 
tell ' Mitchell' that Miller is decidedly worth con- 
verting. I want * Wilbur' to do his best, for I 
intend to tighten the bonds on you to-night." 

She fearlessly faced me. "I am in your hands, 
Mr. Garland; do as you like. Mr. Mitchell told 
me this morning that he would yet convince you of 
the reality of the spirit world. He is assembling 
all the forces at his command, and will certainly 
do everything in his power." 

80 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I am delighted to get that assurance," I re- 
sponded. 

"You are to sit here," said Miller, indicating 
the hickory chair, which he had placed near the 
north wall. 

She took her seat meekly, placing her hands 
resignedly on the wings of the chair. " I like this 
chair," she said, with a smile;" it is so old-fash- 
ioned." 

"Now," said I, "I am going to ask Mrs. Miller 
to fasten this long tape about your ankles. We 
mean to take every precaution in order that you 
may not involuntarily or subconsciously move your 
limbs." 

Under close scrutiny, Mrs. Miller secured each 
foot in such wise that the knots came in the middle 
of the tape, and to make untying them absolutely 
impossible, I drew the two ends of the long ribbon 
back under the pyschic's chair and tacked them 
securely to the shelf of a bookcase about two feet 
from the hind legs. To loosen them was entirely 
out of our victim's power. 

Miller then unreeled a spool of silk twist, and 
this I tied squarely to the arm of the chair at a 
point about six feet from the loose end which I in- 
tended to hold. I knotted the silk about the psy- 
chic's wrists, drawing it to a hard knot each time, 
and gave the spool to Miller, while retaining the 
loose end of the thread in my own hands. The 

81 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

psychic could neither touch the tips of her fingers 
together nor lift her arms an inch from the chair. 
She was as secure as if bound with a rope, but as 
an extra precaution I passed the thread beneath 
the chair-arm and pulled it taut. "This will en- 
able us to feel the lightest movement of her hands," 
I said to Miller, who had copied my device. "Are 
you satisfied with the conditions ?" 

He answered, with some reservation: "They will 
do. I would like to have light, but that I suppose 
is impossible." 

"No, not impossible," replied Mrs. Smiley, "but 
the work is always weaker in the light; the voices 
are stronger in the dark." 

Mrs. Miller took her seat exactly opposite Mrs. 
Smiley. I was at her right. Miller, after turning 
out the gas, sat opposite me and at the psychic's 
left. 

At first the room was black as ink, but by de- 
grees I (from my position, opposite the window) 
was able to perceive a faint glow of light through 
the curtain. Mrs. Smiley's back was near a wall 
of books, and, the room being narrow, Miller's 
chair pretty well filled the space between the table 
and the window behind it. The action of a con- 
federate was excluded by reason of the bolted door. 
To enter the room by the window was impossible, 
for the reason that the slightest noise could be heard 
and the least movement of the curtain would ad- 

82 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

mit the light. Barring the darkness, conditions 
were all of our own making. 

However, we were hardly settled in place when 
Miller was moved to further precaution. "Mrs. 
Smiley, I would like to pin over your dress a news- 
paper, so that any slightest movement of your knees 
or feet could be heard. Do you object ?" 

"Not at all," she instantly replied. "I am sure 
my guides will do anything they can to meet your 
wishes. You may nail my dress to the floor if you 
wish." 

Miller turned on the light, and together we pinned 
a large, crisp newspaper over her knees and tacked 
it securely to the floor in front of her feet. The 
corners where the pins were inserted were well out 
of the reach of her tethered hands. 

Again the lights were lowered, and at my direc- 
tion Miller placed his right hand on the psychic's 
left and touched fingers with Mrs. Miller. I did 
the same, thus connecting the circle. In this way 
we sat quietly conversing for some time. 

"I want to make it quite plain to you," I said to 
them all, "that I am trying to follow Crookes's 
advice, which is to strip away all romance and all 
superstitious religious ideas from this subject. I 
am insisting on the normal character of these phe- 
nomena. Whatever happens to-night, Mrs. Miller, 
please do not be alarmed. There is nothing in- 
herently uncanny or unwholesome in these phenom- 

83 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ena. No one knows better than your husband the 
essential mystery of the simplest fact. Material- 
ization, for example, is unusual; but if it happens it 
cannot be supernatural. Nothing is supernatural. 
Am I right, Miller ?" 

"We explain each mystery by a deeper mystery," 
he replied. 

"All depends upon the point of view. I am 
interested in these obscure phases of human life. 
If they are real they are natural. To me the spir- 
itistic * demonstrations' are intensely human and 
absorbingly interesting as dramatic material, and 
yet I hope I am sufficiently the scientist to be alive 
to the significance of these telekinetic happenings, 
and enough of the realist to remain critical in the 
midst of the wildest carnival of the invisible forces." 

"Don't you believe in them ?" asked Mrs. Miller, 
with a note of surprise in her voice. 

I replied, cautiously: "I am at this moment con- 
vinced of the reality of some of these phenomena 
by reason of my own experiments; but leaving one 
side my personal investigation, I must believe that 
Crookes, Maxwell, and Flammarion are competent 
witnesses. As to spiritualism — well, that is an- 
other matter." 

"But where does all this lead to if not to spiritual- 
ism ?" asked Mrs. Miller. 

"As to the exact country, no one knows," I an- 
swered; "but the best of our experimenters are 

84 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

agreed that the gate opens upon a new field of 
science. These powers seem to be in advance of 
us and not a survival, and they may prove of value 
in the evolution of the race. That is why I want 
to enlist men like your husband in the work. Me- 
diumship needs just such critical attention as his. 
Nothing like Maxwell or Richet's thoroughness of 
method has ever been used by an American physi- 
cist, so far as I know. On the contrary, our lead- 
ing scientific men seem to have let the subject se- 
verely alone." 

"Why?" asked Mrs. Smiley. 

"Partly because of inherited prejudice, and 
partly because of their allegiance to opposing the- 
ories; and finally, I suspect, because they are con- 
nected with institutions that would not sanction such 
work. You can imagine how the physical depart- 
ment of a denominational college would investigate 
spirit phenomena! It was much the same way in 
England during the early part of last century, but 
they are far in advance of us now. The first not- 
able step in the right direction was taken — as per- 
haps you may know — in 1869, by the Dialectical 
Society of London, which appointed a committee 
to look into the subject of spiritualism, with the 
expectation, no doubt, of being able to stop the 
spread of the delusion. 

"The investigations which followed were under 
the especial charge of Alfred Russel Wallace ; 

8S 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Cromwell Varley, chief of Electrical Engineers 
and Telegraphers ; and Professor Morgan, presi- 
dent of the Mathematical Society. This committee, 
after careful investigation, reported voluminously 
to this effect: 'The phenomena exist. . . . There is 
a force capable of moving heavy bodies without 
material contact, which force is in some unknown 
way dependent upon the presence of human be- 
ings.'" 

"Which was a long way from saying that spirit- 
ism was true," remarked Miller. 

"It certainly was sufficiently vague, you would 
think, to be harmless; but several of the committee 
refused to join in even this cautious report, insisting 
that the conclusions ought to be verified by some 
other scientist. They suggested Sir William Crookes, 
who was at this time in the early prime of his life 
and a renowned chemist — just the man for the 
work. This suggestion was acted upon by Crookes 
a little later, and his report on this 'psychic force' 
had a good deal to do with the formation of the 
now famous Society for Psychical Research.' ' 

"I'd hate to be held responsible for that," said 
Miller, with humorous intent — "of all the collec- 
tions of 'hants' and witches." 

"On the Continent scientific observation had 
already begun. Count Agenor de Gasparin, of 
Valleyeres, was one of the first to take up this prob- 
lem of telekinesis in the modern spirit. He made 

86 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

a long and complicated study of table-tipping in 
1853, and published his conclusions in two large 
volumes in Paris a year later. His experiments 
were careful and searching, and drew the line 
squarely between the supernatural and the natural. 
He said, positively, 'The agency is not supernatu- 
ral ; it is physical, and determined by the will of 
the sitters,' and may be called the Charles Dar- 
win of the subject. A year later Professor Marc 
Thury, of Geneva, added his testimony. He also 
said: 'The phenomena exist, and are mainly due 
to an unknown fluid, or force, which rushes from 
the organism of certain people.' To this force he 
gave the name 'psyscode.' The spirit hypothesis, 
he was inclined to think, was not impossible or 
even absurd. He used absurd in the scientific 
sense, of course." 

"It is the most natural thing in the world to 
me," said Mrs. Smiley. "I would be desolate 
without it." 

" Some ten years later Flammarion, the renowned 
French astronomer, began his studies of these un- 
known forces, and for a long time fought the battle 
alone in France as Sir William Crookes endured 
the brunt of the assault in England." 

Miller here interposed with a covert sneer in 
his voice: "Yes, but Flammarion has always had 
the reputation of being more of the romancer than 
of the astronomer." 

87 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"You scientists do him an injustice," I answered, 
with some heat, "just as you have all been ignorantly 
contemptuous of Crookes. I confess I used to 
share in some small degree your estimate of Flam- 
marion; but if you will read his latest book with 
attention and with candor, you cannot but be im- 
pressed with his wide experience and his patient, 
persistent search for the truth. I am persuaded 
that he has been a genuine pioneer all along. I 
cannot see but that he has examined very critically 
the scores of psychics who have come under his 
observation, and his reports are painstaking and 
cautious. His work must be considered by every 
student of this subject. It won't do to neglect the 
words of a man who has seen so much. — But here 
we go along lines of controversy when we should 
be sitting in quiet harmony. Let us defer our 
discussion until after our seance. Have patience, 
and I believe we can duplicate, if not surpass, the 
marvellous doings of even Richet and Lombroso. 
We may be able some day to take flash-light photo- 
graphs of the cone while it is floating in the air." 

"Has that ever been done?" asked Mrs. Miller. 

"Oh yes; Flammarion secured photos of a table 
floating in the air. These pictures show conclu- 
sively that the psychic had nothing to do with it — 
at least, not in any ordinary way. Richet succeeded 
in fixing the apparition of a helmeted soldier on 
several plates. Crookes photographed ' Katie King' 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

and her medium once or twice, and Fontenay has 
succeeded in getting clear-cut images of the ' spirit' 
hands which play round the head of Paladino. 
But it must be confessed that in Crookes's pictures 
there is a lack of finality in the negatives. He 
never succeeded in getting the faces of both 'Katie' 
and Miss Cook at the same time — and Richet's 
photographs have a made-up look." 

Passing abruptly to a low, humming song, I made 
the attempt to put our psychic to sleep. In a few 
minutes her hands became cold and began to flut- 
ter. At last she threw my fingers away as if she 
found them scorching hot. Miller's hand was 
similarly repulsed. She then seemed to pass into 
quiet sleep, and I said: "Withdraw a little, Miller, 
but keep your silk thread taut." 

Almost immediately faint raps came upon the 
table, and I asked: "Are you there, w Mitchell' ?" 

Tap, tap, tap — "Fes." 

" Are we sitting right ?" 

Tap, tap, tap — "Fes" answered the force, in a 
grave and deliberate way. 

"As to these raps," I remarked, "they are easily 
simulated, but they have been absolutely proven 
by several of our best investigators. They have 
been obtained on a sheet of paper held in the air, 
on pencils, on a strip of cloth, on an open umbrella 
— under every possible condition. Maxwell secured 
them by pinching his own ear or by squeezing the 
7 89 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

arm of his neighbor. I have heard them on a man's 
shirt-front. They are the first manifestations of 
intelligent spirit power, and may be regarded in the 
light of established fact." 

"I wouldn't be hasty about admitting even 
that," remarked Miller. "In the dark — or in the 
light — these obscure sounds may seem very ghostly, 
and yet be due to purely physical causes." 

We sat in silence for a few moments, and at last 
I asked : " Is any spirit present ?" 

Almost immediately a childish voice came from 
the direction of the psychic, apparently issuing 
from her lips. "Mr. Mitchell would like to have 
you tie the threads to the legs of the table." 

"Are you 'Maud?'" I asked. 

"Yes> I am Maudie" she answered. "Mr. 
Mitchell wants to try some experiment. He wishes 
you to tie the threads to the legs of the table." 

I confess I didn't like the looks of this, but as a 
compromise measure I was willing to grant it. " If you 
don't object, Miller, we will do as the guides desire." 

He hesitated. "It weakens our test. I don't 
understand the reason for the demand." 

"I suggest we yield the point for the present. 
Perhaps 'they' will permit us to resume the thread 
a little later. I have found that by apparently 
meeting the forces half-way at the beginning we 
often get concessions later which will be of greater 
value than the tests we have ourselves devised." 

90 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Accordingly, I tied my end of the silk twist to the 
table leg at a distance of about twenty-six inches 
from the utmost reach of the psychic's hands. 
Miller did the same with his end. We then re- 
sumed our seats, and waited for over an hour. 

During this time the psychic was absolutely silent 
and apparently in deep trance, and I was beginning 
to feel both disappointed and chagrined. Miller's 
tone was a bit irritating. I knew exactly what was 
in his mind. "I've fixed her now," he was exult- 
antly saying to himself. "She can't do a thing; 
even her request to have the threads tied to the 
table does not avail her. Accustomed to have 
everything her own wav, she fails the first time any 
real restraint is applied to her." 

I was quite at the end of my confident expect- 
ancy, when the psychic began to stir uneasily and 
"Maudie" spoke complaining of the thread on 
her mother's right wrist. "It's so tight it stops 
the blood" she said. "Please loosen the thread a 
little. Tou may turn up the light" added the little 
voice. 

While Miller gave me a light, I loosened the 
thread on her right wrist, which was very tight; 
but I tied a second thread about her arm in such 
wise that I would surely know at the end of the 
sitting if it had been disturbed. The table, I ob- 
served at the time, was more than two feet from 
her finger-tips. I called Miller's attention to this, 

9i 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

and said: "She can't possibly untie these threads, 
and if she breaks them the sitting is invalidated. " 

Soon after the light was turned out "Maudie" 
requested that we all move away from Mrs. Smiley, 
down to the lower end of the table; and although 
Miller thought this permitted too much liberty of 
action on the part of the medium, I urged consent. 
"There are other sittings coming," I repeated once 
more. 

Mrs. Smiley fell again into deep sleep, but noth- 
ing took place for a long time. During this period 
of waiting I told stories of my experience and the 
curious folk I had met in search for the true ex- 
planation of these singular phenomena. 

"Have you ever witnessed any materializations ?" 
asked Mrs. Miller. 

"Yes; but none of it was of the sort that I could 
swear to. I mean that it seemed to me to be either 
downright trickery or subconscious actions on the 
part of the psychic, and yet I've seen some very puz- 
zling phantoms. I am persuaded that a great deal of 
what is called ' fraud' arises from the suggestibility 
of the psychics. Lombroso speaks of this ' fixed 
idea' of the mediums, and their persistent, almost 
insane, attempt to produce the phenomena desired 
by the circle. You can understand how this would 
be if there is anything at all in hypnotism. Some- 
times it all seems to belong to the realm of hypnotic 
visions. One medium helps another to build up 

92 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

this unreal world. Early in my career as an in- 
vestigator I went to Onset Bay, where in July of 
each year all the spiritualists and 'mejums' of New 
England used to gather (do yet, I believe), and I 
shall never forget the singular assemblage of ' slate- 
writers,' ' spirit artists/ 'spirit photographers,' 
' palmists,' and 'psychometrists' whose signs lined 
the street and pointed along the paths of the camp. 

" In its way it was as dramatic a contrast of light 
and shade, of the real and the unreal, as this other- 
wise prosaic republic can show. There under the 
vivid summer sun, beside the glittering sea, men 
and women met to commune on the incommuni- 
cable, to question the voiceless, and to embrace the 
intangible. It was, indeed, such a revelation of 
human credulity as might well have overpow- 
ered a young novelist. From the warm, pine- 
scented afternoon air I crept into one of these tiny 
cabins, and sat with my hands upon a closed slate 
in order to receive a message from Lincoln or Caesar; 
I slipped beneath the shelter of a tent to have a 
sealed letter read by a commonplace person with 
an Indian accent; and I sat at night in dark little 
parlors to watch weak men and weeping women 
embrace very badly designed effigies of their lost 
darlings." 

"Isn't it incredible ? Can you imagine any rea- 
sonable person believing such things ?" asked Miller. 

"Millions do," I replied. 
93 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Please go on," entreated Mrs. Miller. "What 
happened to you ?" 

"Nothing really worth reporting upon. In that 
day of utter credulity no tests were possible, but 
immediately after my return to Boston I had my 
first entirely satisfactory test of the occult. I went 
with Mrs. Rose, one of our members, to sit for 
'independent slate-writing' — that is to say, writing 
on the inner surfaces of closed slates. Up to this 
moment I was profoundly sceptical, but I could not 
doubt the reality of what happened. I took my 
own slates — the ordinary hinged school slates; but 
whether they were my own or not made no dif- 
ference really, for the final test which I demanded 
was such that any prepared slates were useless. 
I'm not going into tiresome detail. I only say that 
while sitting at the table with both Mrs. Rose's 
hands and my own resting upon the slates / dictated 
certain lines to be drawn upon the inside of the 
slates." 

Miller's voice expressed growing interest. "And 
this was done ?" 

"It was done. I had in mind the test which 
Alfred Russel Wallace had used in a similar case. 
He dictated several words to be written while hold- 
ing the slates securely in his own hands. In this 
instance I asked for the word 'Constantinople' to 
be written. The psychic smiled, shrugged her 
shoulders, and replied: Til try, but I don't be- 

94 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

lieve they can spell it.' 'Draw a straight line, then/ 
said I. Til be content with a single line an inch 
long.' She laughingly retorted: 'It's hard to draw 
a straight line.' 'Very well, draw a crooked line. 
Draw a zigzag — like a stroke of lightning. Draw 
it in yellow. Draw a circle.' She said no more, 
but became silent, and we waited without change 
of position. Remember that I was holding the 
slate during all this talk. It did not leave my 
hands." 

" What were the conditions ? Was it light ?" 
asked Miller. 

"It was about two o'clock of an afternoon, and 
we sat in the bay-window of the parlor. It was 
perfectly light. No one moved. The psychic sat 
opposite us, leaning back in a thoughtful pose. Her 
hands lay in her lap, and she seemed to be merely 
waiting. At last a tapping came upon the slate, 
and she brightened up. 'It is done!' she called, 
exultingly. I opened the slates myself, and there, 
drawn in yellow crayon, was a small circle with a 
zigzag yellow line crossing it exactly as I had dic- 
tated, and under Mrs. Rose's hands in the corner 
of the slate was a gayly colored bunch of pansies. 
There were messages also, but I paid very little 
attention to them. The production of that circle 
under those conditions overshadowed everything 
else. It was a definite and complete answer to my 
doubt. It was, in fact, a 'miracle.' I recall going 

95 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

directly to a meeting of the society and reporting 
upon this sitting. You will find the bald statement 
of my experiment in the minutes of the secretary. " 

Miller was silent for a moment, then asked: 
"You're sure it was done after you took the slates 
in hand?" 

"I am as certain of it as I am of anything." 

" How do you account for it ? Of course it was 
a trick." 

"Trickery can't account for that yellow line. 
The messages could have been written before- 
hand, but no trick of prepared slates can account 
for my dictated design. I have had other cases 
of slate-writing which were almost as inexplicable, 
and Crookes and Wallace and Zollner, as you re- 
member, were quite convinced by evidence thus 
secured. Crookes saw the pencil at work. I have 
never witnessed the writing, but I have heard it 
at work under my hands and I have felt it under my 
feet. I have had writing on ten separate pages in 
a closed Manila-pad held between my hands." 

Miller seemed to be impressed by these state- 
ments. "I have always considered slate-writing a 
cheap trick, but I don't quite see how that was 
done — always providing your memory is not at 
fault." 

"I would not place much dependence on my 
present recollection," I frankly responded, "but I 
reported on the case at once while my mind was 

9 6 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

most accurate as to details. Speaking further of 
these tricks, if you choose to call them such, I have 
had several failures, where the failure meant as 
much as a success. I have held two slates with a 
psychic (while we were both standing) when the 
creaking and scratching and grinding went on 
between my hands. I give you my word I was 
convinced at the moment of holding between 
my palms a sentient force. I felt as Franklin 
must have felt when he played with the lightning 
in the bottle at the tail of his kite. Once I heard 
the writing going on in a half-opened slate, but I did 
not see the pencil in motion. Some of these cases 
of 'direct-writing' are the most convincing of all my 
experiences. People ask me why I didn't talk with 
the spirits about heaven and angels. I was not 
interested in their religious notions. I kept to this 
one line — I wanted to see a particle of matter move 
from A to B without a known push or pull. I paid 
very little attention to 'trance-mediums' like Mrs. 
Piper; and although I saw a great deal of what is 
called 'mind -reading' and 'thought -transference/ 
I did not permit the cart to get before the horse. 
' Independent slate-writing' interested me, for the 
reason that I could put the clamps on it. Ma- 
terialization, on the contrary, is so staged and ar- 
ranged for that to prove its genuineness seems im- 
possible at present; but slate-writing under your 
hand is a different matter." 

97 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I'd like to have it under my hand," said Miller, 
grimly. 

"You can have it if you'll go after it," I retorted, 
"and you can have it hard." 

Mrs. Miller was deeply interested. "Tell us 
more. Have you had other messages written in 
that wonderful way ?" 

"Yes, many of them. One of the most curious 
examples of this kind I have ever seen came to me 
in Chicago. It was a 'new one,' as Howard would 
say. Old Mr. MacVicker told me one day that 
there was a woman on the West Side who had a 
trick of producing independent slate-writing be- 
neath the stem of a goblet of water — " 

"Why under a goblet of water?" interrupted 
Miller. 

"As a test. You see, nearly every one who goes 
to a psychic wants first of all to witness a miracle. 
Each seeker demands that his particular message 
shall come hard — that is to say, under conditions 
impossible to the living. His reasoning is like this: 
'The dead are free from the limitations of our life, 
therefore they should manifest themselves to us as 
befits their wider knowledge of the laws of the 
universe, and especially is it their business to outdo 
the most skilful conjurer! Hence each man insists 
on locked slates and sealed letters. These the poor 
psychics are forced to grant. To be just to them, 
I must say that I have found most mediums fairly 

98 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

willing to meet any reasonable test; in fact, many 
of them seem perfectly confident of the inscrutable, 
and venture upon what seems to be the impossible 
with amazing imperturbability. All they ask is 
to be treated like human beings. They are sel- 
dom afraid of results. Sometimes they bully the 
forces sadly, and make them work when they don't 
want to. 

"Well, this particular psychic ushered me into 
her back parlor (which was flooded with sunlight), 
and asked me to be seated at a small table covered 
with a strip of cloth. She was a comfortable, 
plump person, evidently from Kansas, in manner 
somewhat like the humorous wife of a prosperous 
village carpenter. I remember that we were rather 
sympathetic on various political questions. After 
some remarks on populism and other weighty mat- 
ters, she filled a goblet with water, and, placing it 
upon a slate, passed it under the table with her 
right hand, asking me to put my hand beneath hers. ,, 

"There it is!" said Miller, with infinite scorn. 
"Always in the dark or under the table. No won- 
der Emerson called it 'a rat-hole philosophy." 

"Suppose it's all the work of an 'astral' who 
can't abide the light ?" I suggested. 

"I know the theory, but I can't allow it." 

"Why not? You permit the photographer his 
dark-room." 

Then, with malicious delight in his petulance, I 
99 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

calmly continued: "I put my left hand beneath 
hers and my right upon the table. I could see her 
left hand lying in her lap, and as she turned side- 
wise to the table I was able to keep in view both 
of her feet. We held the slate so that the top of 
the goblet lightly touched the under side of the stand. 
The psychic was all accounted for, except the hand 
which was resting outspread on the under side of the 
slate. We sat for several minutes in this way, 
while she explained that 'they' would probably 
take words out of our conversation as a test, if I 
desired it. 'I am here to be shown,' I replied. 
She laughed at me, and on two different occasions 
brought the slate from beneath the table with writ- 
ing under the stem of the goblet. This was all very 
well, but I said: 'A better test would be to have 
them write words that I dictate.' 

"'I will ask them,' she said. She seemed to 
listen as if to voices inaudible to me, and at last said: 
'They will try it.' 

"Again we placed the goblet of water on the 
clean slate under the table, and while holding it 
as before, I said: 'Now ask them to write the name 
"William Dean Howells." ' 

"Almost immediately there was a decided move- 
ment of the slate — or so it seemed to me. A power 
seemed to wake on the slate, not through the psy- 
chic's hand, but independent of it. I heard plainly 
the scratching of a pencil, at the same time that the 

ioo 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

psychic's left hand and both of her feet were in full 
view, and at the same time that her hand was out- 
spread, apparently motionless, upon the under side 
of the slate. In a few moments the scratching 
paused, and the psychic, with an embarrassed 
smile, said: 'They don't know how to spell the 
middle name.' " 

"That is to say, she was the one who could not 
spell the name," said Miller. 

"That's what I thought at the time, but I helped 
her out, and a moment later a decided tapping on 
the top of the table announced the completion of 
the task. 

"As she slowly drew the slate out from under 
the table I was alert to see what had happened. 
The glass remained in the middle of the slate as 
before, with the water undiminished, and under 
the glass and confining itself to the circle of the 
stem were the words: 




written as though acknowledging the barrier of the 
glass where its edge rested upon the slate," 

iqi 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

" Wonderful !" exclaimed Mrs. Miller. 

"Are you sure the writing was there as she drew 
the slate out ?" queried Miller. 

"Yes, I saw the writing as she was removing the 
goblet; and while with her left hand she drew a little 
circle around the outer edge of the stem I read the 
words. Now to say that the psychic wrote this 
with her finger-nail on the bottom of the slate and 
then turned the slate over is to me absurd. The 
glass of water prevented that. And yet she did 
it in some occult way. The transaction remains 
unexplained to me. I am perfectly sure she willed 
it, but how she caused the writing — the physical 
change — is quite another problem. Zollner (I be- 
lieve it was) secured the print of feet on the inside 
of a closed slate, and reasoned that only on the 
theory of a fourth dimension could such phenom- 
ena be explained. That reminds me of a sitting 
I once had with a young man wherein, to utterly 
confound us, the invisible hands removed his un- 
dershirt while his coat-sleeves were nailed to the 
chair." 

"Oh, come now, you don't expect us to believe a 
miracle like that, even on your serious statement ?" 
remarked Miller. 

"I certainly do not," I responded, readily. "I 
wouldn't believe it on any one's statement. That 
is the discouraging thing about this whole business; 
you can't convince any one by any amount of evi- 

102 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

dence. A man will stand out against Zollner, 
Crookes, Lodge, and Myers, discounting all the 
rest of the great investigators, and then crumple up 
like a caterpillar at the first touch of The Invisible 
Hand when it comes to him directly. This same 
young man gave me the most convincing demon- 
strations of materialized forms I have ever seen. 
In his own little home, under the simplest condi- 
tions, he commanded forth from a little bedroom a 
figure which was unmistakably not a mechanism. 
A lamp was burning in the room, and the young 
fellow was perfectly visible at the same moment 
as the phantom which stood and bowed three 
times." 

"What did it look like?" 

"It looked like a man's figure swathed in some 
white drapery. I could not see the face, but it 
was certainly not a ' dummy.' But come, let us 
see what the forces can do for us here to-night. 
I think we will need ' Annie Laurie' to clear the air 
of debate." 

Mrs. Miller began the song, and we all joined in 
softly. 

" Our newspaper is a trusty watch-dog," remark- 
ed Miller, significantly. 

As he spoke the psychic began to toss and writhe 
and moan pitifully. Her suffering mounted to a 
paroxysm at last; then silence fell for a minute or 
two — absolute stillness; and in this hush the table 

103 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

took life, rose, and slid away toward us as if shoved 
by a powerful hand. 

"So far as my hearing goes, the psychic does not 
move," I said. "Barring the light, this is a very 
good demonstration of movement without control. 
Every movement of the table our way removes it 
farther from the reach of the psychic." 

"I hear nothing from the paper," confessed Mil- 
ler, "and yet the table is certainly moving." 

"I can believe this, because I have proved these 
movements without contact. In this case Mrs. 
Smiley cannot reach the table with her knees and 
her feet secured by tape nailed to the bookcase. 
You cannot believe she has gotten out of her skin. 
The newspaper is still on guard, and has uttered 
no alarm." 

"It is very perplexing," Miller admitted; "but 
anything can happen in the dark." 

"I admit it is very easy to deceive our senses, but 
the silk thread is not to be fooled." 

Three times the table was urged in the same 
direction, each paroxysm of suffering, of moaning, 
of struggle, on the part of the psychic, being fol- 
lowed a few seconds later by absolute silence. It 
was in these moments of profound sepulchral hush 
that the heavy table lurched along the floor. It 
was a strange and startling fact. 

"Why are you doing this ?" I asked of the forces. 
"As a test?" 

104 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Yes" the raps replied. 

"How do you account for it, Miller ?" I asked, 
with challenge in my voice. "My conviction is 
that we are confronting a case of telekinesis — not 
as convincing as Flammarion's, but still inexplic- 
able. If that table has moved an inch, it is the 
same as if it had moved a foot. You should feel 
rewarded." 

Miller did not reply; and even as he pondered 
the megaphone, which had been standing on the top 
of the table, began to rock on its base, and a pencil 
which lay beside it was fumbled as if by a rat or 
a kitten. In our state of strained expectancy this 
sound was very startling indeed. 

"What about that, Miller ?" I asked, in a tone of 
exultation. "Who's doing that? Last time you 
suspected Howard, now here you must suspect 
the psychic. The movement of that pencil is of 
enormous significance. How can she possibly 
reach and handle that cone ?" 

"She can't, unless she has freed her hands," he 
admitted. "Let us touch hands." I gave him my 
left hand, and sitting thus, with all hands accounted 
for, we entered into communication with the "spir- 
it" that was busy in the centre of the table. 

"Are you present, 'Wilbur'?" 

Tap, tap, tap. 

"Are you moving the table ?" 

Tap, tap, tap. 

8 105 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"To get it out of reach of the psychic ?" 

Tap, tap, tap. 

Suddenly, with a loud bang, something heavy 
fell upon the table. Releasing the hands of my 
fellow-investigators, I felt about for this object and 
found that a book had been brought and thrown 
upon the table, A shower of others followed, till 
twenty-four were piled about the cone. They 
came whizzing with power, yet with such precision 
that no head was touched and the cone remained 
undisturbed. It was as if some roguish poltergeist 
had suddenly developed in the room. 

"Miller, I find this exciting!'' said I, after silver 
fell upon the table. "Suppose we ask 'Wilbur' 
to fetch some small object whose position you 
know." 

Mrs. Miller then said: "There is a box of candy 
on a shelf back of Mrs. Smiley. It is quite out of 
her reach. Can you bring that to me, 'Wilbur' ?" 

Tap, tap, tap! was the decided answer, and al- 
most immediately the box was placed on the top 
of the table and shoved along toward Mrs. Miller. 

"That's a good demonstration," I remarked, and 
'Wilbur' drummed a sharp tattoo of satisfaction. 

At my request he then wrote his name on a pad 
while Miller waited and listened, his mind too busy 
with surmise to permit of speech. (He told me 
afterward that he was perfectly sure the psychic 
had wrenched free of her tacks and he was wonder- 

106 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ing how she would contrive to put herself back 
again.) 

Finally I asked : "Are you still with us, 'Wilbur' ?" 

The force tapped smartly on the tin. 

"Now, just to show you that the psychic is not 
doing this, can't you hold up a book between me 
and the light ? I want to see your hand." 

Instantly, and to my profound amazement, a 
book rose in the air, and I could see two hands in 
silhouette plainly and vigorously thumbing the vol- 
ume, which was held about three feet above the 
table, and to the psychic's left. 

"Miller," I said, excitedly, "I see hands!" 

"I do not," he answered; "but I hear a 
rustling." 

Swift on the trail, I called out: "Now, show me 
your empty hand, 'Wilbur.' I want to see how 
big it is." A moment later I exclaimed, in pro- 
found excitement : " I can see a large hand against 
the window, and, strangest part of all, the spread 
fingers are pointing toward Mrs. Smiley, the wrist 
is nearest you and at least six feet from the psychic. 
It is a man's hand. You are not doing this, Mil- 
ler ?" 

"Certainly not!" he answered, curtly. 

"This is astonishing! It certainly is a hand and 
much larger than that of a woman, and the wrist 
is toward you. It is still at least four feet from the 
psychic. Oh, for a flash-light camera now! I 

107 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

was perfectly certain that this is not the psychic's 
hand, and yet to admit that it is not is to grant the 
whole theory of materialization. " 

At last the shadow disappeared. The book fell. 
With a ringing scrape the cone rose in the air and 
the voice of " Wilbur" came from it life-like — al- 
most full-toned, and with a note of humorous exul- 
tation running through it. "/ told you Fd astonish 
you /" he said. "Dont get in a hurry ; there's more 
coming" 

For nearly two hours thereafter this "spirit 
voice" kept us all interested and busy. He was 
very much alive, and we alternately laughed at 
his quaint conceits or pondered the implications of 
his casual remarks. It was precisely as if a rol- 
licking Western, or, rather, Southern, man were 
speaking to us over the 'phone. I asked: "Who 
are you ? Is 'Wilbur' your surname ?" 

"No; my middle name. My family name is 
Thompson" 

His characterization was perfect. He respond- 
ed to every question with readiness and perfect 
aplomb. At times he played jokes on us. He 
bumped Miller on the head, and touched him on 
the cheek farthest from the psychic. At my re- 
quest he covered Mrs. Miller's ear with the large 
end of the horn, then reversed and nuzzled her 
temple with the small end. She said it felt like a 
caress, as if guided by a tender hand. She had 

io8 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

become clairvoyant also, and saw many forms about 
the room. I could see nothing. 

"Tell us more about yourself, 'Wilbur' ?" I asked. 
" Who are you ? What did you do on the earth V 

"I was a soldier" 

"In the Civil War?" 

"Yes." 

"On which side?" 

"That's a leading question" he answered, with 
some hesitation. 

"Oh, come now, the war is over!" 

"/ was on the Southern side. I am Jeff. W. 
Thompson. I was a brigadier-general." 

"Where were you killed?" 

"/ was invalided home to Jefferson City, and 
passed out there." 

"How do you happen to be ' guide' to this little 
woman ?" 

He hesitated again. "/ was attracted to her" 
he said, and gave no further explanation. 

"Mitchell" then came and said: "We are deeply 
interested in your experiments, Mr. Garland, and 
will afford you all the aid in our power. It is hard 
to meet your tests — hard, I mean, for our medium, 
but we will assist her to fill the requirements" 

"Thank you. I don't see how any psychic 
could be more submissive." 

Mrs. Miller, deeply impressed by all this, began 
to inquire concerning those of the invisible host 

109 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

whose names were familiar to her. It was evident 
that she, at least, was convinced of their reality. 

Meanwhile, the movement of the cone interested 
Miller more than the messages. "How does she 
do it?" he exclaimed several times. "To touch 
Mrs. Miller means that the psychic must not only 
have free use of her hands: she must rise from her 
chair and pass behind me and the wall." 

"The precision of the action is my amazement," 
I replied. "I've noticed this same thing many 
times. Apparently, darkness is no barrier to action 
on the part of these forces. That cone, you will 
observe, can touch you on the nose, eyelid, or ear, 
softly, without jar or jolt. It came to me just now 
like a sentient thing — like something human. Such 
unerring flight is uncanny. Could any trickster 
perform in the dark with such precision and gen- 
tleness ? Of course this is not conclusive as argu- 
ment, but at the same time it has weight. Whose 
is the eye that directs this instrument ? Can you 
tell us, ' Wilbur'?" 

A chuckle came through the cone. "I'm doing 

itr 

" How can you see ?" 

"Day and night are all the same to me." 

Miller held up his right hand. "Prove it; touch 
my knuckles!" he commanded. 

After a moment's silent soaring the cone struck 
his left hand, which was farthest from the psychic, 

no 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

and a voice followed it with laughter, asking: " What 
made you jump ?" 

Before Miller had recovered from the surprise of 
this, the table seemed to be grasped and shaken as 
if by a man of giant strength — and yet the cone 
and the books did not shift position. Hands patted 
the pillows on a sofa at Miller's right, and one of 
these cushions was flung against his chair. The 
room seemed to swarm with tricksy Pucks. At 
last the cone took flight again, and moved about 
freely among the heap of books and over Miller's 
head, while a variety of voices came successively 
from it, some of them speaking to Mrs. Miller and 
some to me. Several of the names given were known 
to Mrs. Miller, and a few were recognizable by me. 
They all claimed to be spirits of the dead with 
messages of good cheer for friends on "the earth- 
plane," but they were all rather vague and stereo- 
typed. Once I thought I could see the cone passing 
between me and the window, high above the table. 
It seemed to float horizontally as if in water. Some 
of the spirits were too weak to raise the cone — so 
"Wilbur" said; too weak, even, to whisper. 

During all this time the psychic remained in 
trance — deathly still; but "between the acts" her 
troubled breathing and low moans could be heard. 
So far as hearing could define, she was still at 
the end of the table, where she had been placed 
at the beginning of the sitting. None of these 

in 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

movements occasioned the slightest rustling of the 
newspaper. When the cone was moving no sound 
was heard. The floor was of hard-wood, and, as 
one's hearing becomes very acute in the darkness, 
I am certain the psychic did not rise from her 
chair. She was, for the most part, silent as a dead 
woman. 

The force expended on the table was very great, 
almost furious, and even if the psychic had been 
able to extend her foot or release a hand she could 
not have produced such movement, and if she had 
done so we could have detected it. Intelligent 
forces were plainly at work on the table, and writ- 
ing was going on. So far as I was concerned, I 
was convinced that the psychic had externalized her 
power in some occult fashion, and that it was she 
who was speaking to us. It was as if she were able 
to will the cone to rise and then to project her voice 
into it, all of which seems impossible the moment 
it is stated. 

At length "Wilbur" said : " Good-night." I rose, 
and Miller, eagerly, expectantly, turned the light 
slowly on. Mrs. Smiley sat precisely as we had 
last seen her. Her eyes were closed, her head lean- 
ing against the back of her chair. Her hands were 
fastened exactly as we had left them, and, strangest 
thing of ally the table was pushed away from her so 
that the silk threads were tight. 

"Do you see that, Miller ?" I exclaimed. "Will 
112 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

you tell me how that final movement was made ? 
'Wilbur' has given us an unexpected test. Even 
if she had freed her hands, she could not have tied 
the threads and returned to her bonds; and if she 
first returned to her bonds, how could she, then, 
have pushed the table away ? The two things are 
mutually exclusive. Her feet are nailed to the 
floor, and the newspaper still on guard. Are we 
not forced to conclude that the table was moved by 
some supernormal expenditure of force ? Her hands 
were here, the table there. Does it not seem to you 
a case of the ' psychic force,' such as Crookes and 
Richer describe ?" 

Miller was confounded, but concealed it. "She 
may have shoved the table with her feet." 

"How? Your newspaper is unbroken. Not a 
tack is disturbed. But suppose she did! How 
about the books ? Did she get the books with her 
feet ? How about the broad hand which I saw ? 
How about the candy-box which was moved from a 
point seven feet away ? How could she slip from 
her bonds ? See these threads, actually sunk into 
her wrists!" I continued. "No, my conviction is 
that she has not once moved." 

"I cannot admit that." 

"You mean you dare not!" 

Mrs. Miller was indignant at our delay. "The 
poor thing! It is a shame! Unfasten her at once! 
You are torturing her!" 

i*3 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Wait a few moments," said Miller, inexorably. 
"I want to make a few notes." 

Meanwhile I took the psychic's pulse. It was 
very slow, faint, and irregular. It was, indeed, only 
a faint, sluggish throb at long intervals, and each 
throb was followed only by a feeble fluttering. Her 
skin was cold, her arms perfectly inert and numb, 
and she came very slowly back to consciousness. 
I had a conviction at the moment that she had been 
out of her body. 

While I rubbed her hands and arms, Miller took 
notes and measurements. There were more than 
two dozen books on the table, and some of them 
had come from shelves three feet distant and a 
little above the psychic's shoulders. It was true 
she could have reached them with a free arm, but 
she had no free arm! The pad in the middle of the 
table was scrawled upon. "Wilbur" was written 
there, and short messages from "Mr. Mitchell" 
and other "ghosts." Therefore, it is of no value 
to say we were collectively hypnotized. 

As she came to life, Mrs. Smiley complained of 
being numb. "My arms are like logs," she said, 
"and so are my feet. My 'guides' say that if you 
will put one palm to my forehead and the tips of 
your fingers at the base of my brain it will help me 
to liven up." 

I did as she requested, and was at once conscious 
of great heat and turmoil in her head. It appeared 

114 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

to throb as if in receding excitement. I thought of 
Richet's observations (that in cases of materializa- 
tion the psychic seemed shrunk and weakened), and 
narrowly scanned the helpless woman. She seemed 
at the moment small and bloodless. 

"Were you conscious of groaning and gasping?" 
I asked. 

"No, I have no recollection of anything. I am 
told I do make a great fuss, but I don't know it. 
Did anything happen ?" 

"A very great deal happened," I answered. 

She smiled in quiet satisfaction. 

"I'm glad. Mr. Miller has been good and pa- 
tient; it would have been a shame to disappoint 
him. If you will only keep from being too anxious 
you'll get anything you want." 

"That's what ' Mitchell' said." 

Mrs. Miller patted her hands. "You must be 
very tired, poor thing ?" 

"I do feel weak, but that will soon pass away. 
What time is it ?" 

Miller looked at his watch. "Great Scott! It's 
after one o'clock." 

"Absorbing business, isn't it?" said I. 

Mrs. Miller invited Mrs. Smiley to stay the re- 
mainder of the night and took her away to bed, 
leaving us to measure and weigh and surmise. It 
seemed absurd — like a dream; and yet there lay the 
visible, tangible proofs of the marvel. 

ii5 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Everything took place within her reach, pro- 
vided she could have freed her hands," Miller re- 
peated, as he sat in her chair and studied the books 
on the table. 

"Miller," said I, with conviction, "that woman 
did not lift her wrists from that chair!" 

"I don't see how she did it; but to say she did 
not, is to admit the preposterous. I wish she had 
permitted us to hold her hands." 

" I don't know of another psychic in America who 
would have submitted to the test we put upon Mrs. 
Smiley to-night, but * Mitchell ' has assured me he 
will go further: he will let us hold her hands and 
turn on the light. I feel as if the great mys- 
tery were almost within our grasp. By the ghost 
of Euclid! I have the conviction at this moment 
that we are at the point of proving for ourselves 
the elongation of the psychic's limbs! Suppose 
Flammarion is right ? Suppose that the psychic 
can extend her arms beyond their normal propor- 
tions ? You should be ready to give a year, ten 
years, to demonstrating a single one of these physi- 
cal effects. If I am any judge of character, this 
little woman is as honest and as wholesome as Mrs. 
Miller herself. It isn't this one performance alone 
which proves it. It is the implication of a dozen 
other sittings, almost as convincing as this, that 
gives me hope of proving something. Let us have 
our next sitting at Cameron's. It is only fair to 

116 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

readmit them, for we have proven that they had 
nothing to do with our performance that first night. 
Let us ask to be permitted to hold the hands and 
feet of the psychic, and also to take a flash-light 
picture of the floating cone. We may yet see these 
ghostly hands in the light of the lamp." 

Miller was shaken. I could see that. He sat 
like one who has been dealt a stunning blow. 

"I don't believe it — I can't believe it," he repeated. 

"Crookes got some photos of 'Katie King,' and 
I fully believe that Mrs. Smiley may be developed 
further. Anyhow, let's test her. Now for a word 
of theory. This is the way it all appears to me at 
this time. She seems to enter successively three 
stages of hypnotic sleep. In the first stage the 
'spirits' speak through her own throat — or she im- 
personates, as Mrs. Harris did. Her second and 
deeper sleep permits of the movement of the cone — 
'telekinesis,' 'independent slate-writing,' etc. But 
in this final deathly trance she has the power of 
projecting her astral hands, whatever that may 
mean, and the production of spirit voices. Per- 
haps she has an astral head — " 

" I don't believe a word of it! It is all impossible, 
monstrous!" 

"Well, how will you explain this performance? 
What about the tacks, the threads, the tapes that 
bound her ? She brought books, shook the table, 
touched us — How ?" 

117 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I don't know; but there must be some per- 
fectly natural way of explaining it. There is no 
place for the supernatural in my world. She seems 
a nice, simple little woman, and yet this very sim- 
plicity may be a means of throwing us off our 
guard. I will give a hundred dollars for permis- 
sion to hold her hands while the cone is moving." 

" If you do not believe in tacks, will you believe 
in the touch of your fingers ?" 

"If she permits me to hold her and the cone 
moves I will surrender." 

"No, you won't. You think you will, but you 
won't. Don't deceive yourself. I've been all 
through it. You cant believe until some funda- 
mental change takes place in your mind. You 
must struggle just as Richet did." 

"Anyhow, let's turn the screws tighter. Let's 
devise some other plan to make ourselves doubly 
certain of her part in the performance." 

With this understanding I said good-night, and 
took my lonely way to my apartment. 

It was deliciously fresh and weirdly still in the 
street, and as I looked up at the glowing stars and 
down the long, empty street my mind revolted. 
" Can it be that the good old theory of the perma- 
nence of matter is a gross and childish thing ? Do 
the dead tell tales, after all ? I wish I could believe 
it. Perhaps old Tontonava was right. Perhaps if 
we were all to pray for the happy hunting-grounds 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

at the same moment and in perfect faith, the lost 
paradise would return builded by the simple power 
of our thought." 

Then Richet's moving confession came to me: 
"It took me twenty years of patient research to 
arrive at my present conviction. Nay (to make 
one last confession), I am not yet absolutely and 
irremediably convinced. In spite of the astounding 
phenomena which I have witnessed, I have still a 
trace of doubt — doubt which is weak, indeed, to-day $ 
but which may, perchance, be stronger to-morrow. 
Yet such doubts, if they come, will not be due so 
much to any defect in the actual experiment as 
to the inexorable strength of prepossession which 
holds me back from adopting a conclusion which 
contravenes the habitual and almost unanimous 
opinion of mankind." 



AT this point the sittings, which had begun so 
it interestingly, suddenly began to fail of results. 
The power unaccountably weakened. Miller and 
several others of the circle believed these failures 
to be due to the increased rigidity of the restraint 
we had imposed upon the medium. The next 
"session" was held in Fowler's down-town office, 
against the hesitating protest of the psychic, who 
said: "The atmosphere of the place is not good." 
By which she meant that the associations of the 
office, with the hurry and worry of business, were 
in opposition to the mood necessary for the pro- 
duction of the phenomena. 

"The real reason," declared Howard, "is this: 
we're now getting down to brass tacks in her busi- 



ness." 



This was literally true. At Miller's suggestion 
a strong tape, perhaps half an inch wide, had been 
passed about the psychic's wrist and tied in a close, 
square knot, and finally a long brass tack was 
driven down through both strands of the tape 
into the chair-arm. This was in reality as secure 

120 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

as a handcuff. Nothing happened this night be- 
yond the movement of the table and some rather 
weak raps, and we all rose from our seats worn and 
disappointed. 

When we met the next night in the same place, 
and adjusted the ever-tightening bands upon the 
psychic, she sat helplessly for three hours. I be- 
gan to lose confidence in her power to do anything 
beyond the ordinary. Howard, Mrs. Quigg, and 
Miss Brush dropped out before the sitting was 
over. Only Brierly and myself met the psychic 
at the Camerons' on the following Thursday. 
Again we sat patiently for long hours, with only the 
movement of the table and a drumming upon the 
top in response to our requests. Miller now said: 
"I would like to have one more sitting in my 
library, to see if we can duplicate the marvels of 
our previous seance." 

We did not. The table alone moved, but it 
did this under absolutely test conditions. Over 
each of the psychic's arms a lady's stocking was 
drawn, and pinned to her dress at the shoulder. 
On each hand a luminous pasteboard star was 
fastened, and her wrists were tied and tacked, as 
before. Again we nailed her dress to the floor and 
covered her knees with a newspaper, and Miller 
and I held threads which were knotted to her 
wrists. Nevertheless, under these conditions the 
table moved while no one touched it, but always 
9 121 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

in a line away from the psychic. At the moment 
of the sliding of the table I closely watched the 
luminous stars, and asserted to the others that 
her hands did not stir. So that this movement, 
though slight, was genuinely telekinetic. 

A very curious incident now cut short our sitting. 
Miller, who thought the left hand of the psychic 
was not in place, twitched the string which he held, 
and immediately Mrs. Smiley began to twist and 
sigh, and "Maud" complained that her mamma 
had been injured by the jerking of the thread by 
Professor Miller, and said that the sitting would 
have to stop. We lighted up and found the psy- 
chic apparently suffering keenly from a severe 
cramp all through her left side, and a good deal of 
rubbing was necessary to restore her to anything 
like a normal condition. 

It really seemed like failure for my psychic, and 
I began to wonder whether the books really did 
fly from Miller's shelves. I could not suspect the 
gentle little lady of conscious deceit, but with a 
knowledge of the wonderful deceptions of som- 
nambulists and hysterics, I began to doubt. I 
urged Miller to try one more sitting. He con- 
sented, and we met at Brierly's house. Nothing 
happened during the first two hours, and at ten 
o'clock, or thereabouts, Miller, Brierly, and Fowler 
withdrew, leaving me to untie and restore Mrs. 
Smiley, who was still apparently in deep sleep. 

122 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

It was evident that the guides had not re- 
leased the psychic, and "Maudie" soon spoke, 
asking me to put her mamma into a wooden chair, 
and to take the cone apart and put the smaller end 
upon the table. I did as she requested, and drew 
the psychic's chair and table together. "Wilbur" 
insisted that I tie the psychic as before, but I re- 
plied, rather dejectedly: "Oh no; let things go on 
as they are." 

He insisted, and, with very little faith in the power 
of the psychic, I did as I was told. I tied her wrists 
separately and then together, and, drawing both 
ends of the tape into my left hand, I passed them 
under the tip of my forefinger in such wise that I 
could feel any slightest movement of the psychic's 
hands. The guides asked me to fasten her wrists 
to the chair, but I replied: "I am satisfied." 

Again I was brought face to face with the mys- 
tery of mediumship. Sitting thus, with no one 
present but Mrs. Brierly, a woman to be trusted, 
the cone was drummed upon and carried about 
as if by a human hand. It touched my cheek at a 
distance of two feet from Mrs. Smiley's hands, and 
"Wilbur's" voice — strong, vital, humorous — came 
to me, conversing as readily, as sensibly, as any 
living flesh-and-blood person, and all the time I 
held to my tapes, carefully noting that no movement, 
beyond a slight tremor, took place in the psychic's 
arms. Just before each movement of the cone she 

123 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

shivered convulsively and sighed, but while the cone 
moved she was deathly still. Each time as the 
cone left the table it seemed to rock to and fro as 
though a hand were trying to grasp it, and a mo- 
ment later it rose with a light spring. My impres- 
sion was — my belief at the moment was — that Mrs. 
Smiley had nothing to do in any ordinary way 
with the movement of the horn. If there is any 
virtue in a taut tape and my sense of touch, her 
arms lay like marble during the precise time the 
voice was speaking to me. I could detect no con- 
nection between herself and the voice. 

" Mitchell" assured me that he approved of 
every test we were putting upon "the instrument," 
and expressed confidence that she would triumph 
over Miller. "But the circles have been too often 
changed," he asserted, "and the places have not 
been well chosen. All must be unhurried and har- 
monious," he added, and I replied that I had been 
discouraged, but that this sitting had given me new 
interest. "I will be faithful to the end," I assured 
him. 

"Wilbur" and "Mitchell" were perfectly dis- 
tinct personalities, and appeared to confer and act 
together. I had a sense of nearness to the solution 
of the mystery that thrilled me. Here in the circle 
of my out-stretched arms the incredible was hap- 
pening. I held Mrs. Brierly's hands, and controlled 
(by means of my tightly stretched tape) the move- 

124 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ments of the psychic, and yet the megaphone was 
lifted, handled, used as a mouthpiece by "spirits." 
I felt that if at the moment I had been able to turn 
on a clear light I could have seen my ghostly visitors. 
This final hour's experience revived all my confi- 
dence in Mrs. Smiley, and not even another long 
series of absolute failures could destroy my faith in 
her honesty or my belief in her occult powers. 

My patience was sorely tried by twelve almost 
perfectly useless sittings, during which everybody 
dropped away but Mr. and Mrs. Fowler, Dr. Towne, 
Brierly, and myself. They were not utterly bar- 
ren sittings, but the phenomena were repetitious 
or slight and fugitive. 

Mr. and Mrs. Fowler were friends of Brierly, 
and, like him, avowed spiritists, but they both lent 
their best efforts to make the tests complete and 
convincing. After trying sittings here and there, 
we finally settled upon a series of afternoon sessions 
in Fowler's own house. This was the twenty-sixth 
sitting of the series, and Cameron's Amateur Psy- 
chical Society was practically a memory. I was 
now going ahead pretty much on my own lines, but 
with an eye to catching Miller and the Camerons 
at a successful seance before concluding my search. 

Mrs. Smiley was in great distress of mind over 
the failure of her powers. "I guess I'm no good 
any more," she said. "I never sit now without a 
feeling that perhaps my power is gone forever. 

125 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

This Eastern climate is so harsh for me, and I long 
for my own California. If you will not give up, I 
will keep trying as long as my guides advise it." 

" You have done your part," I said, with intent 
to console her. 

" Please don't give up," she pleaded. 

"I am not giving up— on the contrary, I am only 
beginning to fight," I assured her, paraphrasing 
General Grant, or some other obstinate person. "I 
recognize the truth of what you complain about, 
but I am sure that at Fowler's, in a small, warm, 
well-aired room, you will feel at home and be se- 
cure of interruption." 

Mrs. Fowler, a very sensitive, thoughtful, dark- 
eyed little lady, received us at the appointed hour 
with quiet cordiality, and suggested that her own 
room up-stairs would be a comfortable and retired 
place. 

To this I agreed, and we set to work to prepare it 
for the sitting. Fowler and I assumed control of 
the psychic, though Brierly insisted that, as the house 
belonged to Fowler, it would be more convincing 
if he were not connected with the preparation of 
the room. "I don't think we need to consider hair- 
drawn objections," I retorted. 

As before, we placed Mrs. Smiley in an arm-chair 
at one end of a small table; as before, we secured 
her ankles by looping a long tape about them and 
nailing the two ends to the floor behind her. Mrs. 

126 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Fowler introduced an innovation by sewing the 
tape to the sleeves of our psychic. This made slip- 
ping out of the tape an impossibility, but, to push 
security still further, I drove a long brass tack down 
through both tape and doubled sleeve. Not content 
even with this, Fowler put a second tape about 
each wrist, to add further security and to take off 
the strain in case of any unconscious movement. 
Another tape was carried across Mrs. Smiley's 
dress about four inches below her knees, and pinned 
there. Next the ends were drawn tight and tied 
to the back rung of her chair. By this we intended 
to prevent any pushing action of the knees. As a 
final precaution, we nailed her dress to the floor in 
front with three tacks. The small end of the tin 
cone was then placed on the table (at the request 
of the psychic) and the large end deposited up- 
right on the carpet near Fowler. Some sheets of 
paper and a pencil were laid upon the table. Ev- 
erything movable was entirely out of the psychic's 
reach. 

It was about three o'clock of the afternoon when, 
after darkening the windows, we took our seats in 
a little circle about the table. As usual, I guarded 
the psychic's right hand, while Fowler sat at her 
left. Brierly and Mrs. Fowler were opposite Mrs. 
Smiley. The room was lighter than at any other 
of our sittings — both on account of the in filtering 
light of day, and also because an open grate fire in 

127 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the north wall sent forth an occasional flicker of red 
flame. 

We sat for some time discussing Miller and Harris 
and their attitude toward the psychic. I remarked: 

"To me our failures, some of them at least, have 
been very instructive, but the gradual falling away 
of our members makes evident to me how unlikely 
it is that any official commission will ever settle the 
claims of spiritualism. As Maxwell has said: 'It 
is a slow process, and he who cannot bring himself 
to plod patiently and to wait uncomplainingly for 
hours at a time will not go far.' I confess that the 
half-heartedness of our members has disappointed 
me. I told them at the outset not to expect enter- 
tainment, but they did. It is tiresome to sit night 
after night and get nothing for one's pains. It 
seems foolish and vain, but any real investigator 
accepts all these discomforts as part of the game. 
Failures are sure to come when the psychic is hon- 
est. Only the juggler can produce the same effects. 
A medium is not a Ley den-jar nor an Edison bat- 
tery; materialization is not precisely a vaudeville 
' stunt.' " 

"I don't call the last sitting a failure," said Fow- 
ler. "The conditions were strictly test conditions, 
and yet matter was moved without contact. Of 
course, the mere movement of a table, or even of 
the trumpet, seems rather tame, as compared with 
the doings of 'Katie King'; but, after all, a single 

128 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

genuine case of telekinesis should be of the greatest 
value to the physicist; and, as for the psychologist, 
the fact of your friend, Mrs. Thomas, becoming 
entranced by 'Wilbur' was startling enough, in all 
conscience. 5 ' 

"I don't think Miller believed in her trance," 
said I. 

"What happened ?" asked Brierly, who had not 
been present at this particular sitting. 

I answered: "Mrs. Thomas, a friend of mine, a 
very efficient, clear-brained person, whom, by-the- 
way, we had asked to come in order to fully pre- 
serve the proprieties, suddenly felt a twitching in 
her left hand, which was touching mine. This 
convulsive movement spread to her shoulder, until 
her whole arm began to thresh about like a flail in 
a most alarming way. The action became so vio- 
lent at last that she called upon me for aid. I found 
it exceedingly difficult to subdue her agitation and 
silence her rebellious limb, but I did finally succeed. 
Nor was this all. A few moments later, while help- 
ing us in the singing, my friend suddenly stopped 
singing and began to laugh in a deep, guttural 
fashion, and presently a voice — the voice of a man, 
apparently — came from her throat: 'Haw! haw! 
I've got ye now!' I've got ye now!' It sounded like 
'Wilbur.'" 

This seemed to amuse Mrs. Smiley. "It was 
'Wilbur,'" she said. "He loves to jump in and 

129 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

seize upon some one's vocal chords that way. It's 
a favorite joke with him." 

"What horrible taste!" Mrs. Fowler shudderingly 
exclaimed. 

"Oh, I don't know," remarked Brierly. "It is 
actually no worse than having your hand controlled." 

"To have a spirit inside of one's throat is a little 
startling, even to me," I admitted, sympathetically. 
"But there was more of this business. Another 
member of the circle — a young man — became en- 
tranced, and proceeded to impersonate lost souls, 
'earth-bound spirits,' in the manner of our friend 
Mrs. Harris, and wailed and wept and moaned in 
most grewsome fashion. However, I think Miller 
considered both of these performances merely cases 
of hysteria, induced by the darkness and the con- 
straint of sitting about the table. And perhaps he 
was correct." 

"Anything a doctor doesn't understand he calls 
hysteria," put in Brierly. "I consider these special- 
ists nuisances." 

"Well, anyhow, our 'Amateur Spook-spotter 
Association' seems to have come to an untimely 
end," said I, regretfully. "Of the original number, 
only Brierly remains. Wouldn't our deserters be 
chagrined if we should now proceed to enjoy a really 
startling session ?" 

"We will," Mrs. Smiley responded. "I feel the 
power all about me." 

130 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

''Good!" cried Fowler. "That is the way you 
should feel. If you are at ease, the spirits will do 
the rest." 

"Sit back and rest," I said. "We have plenty 
of time. You've been too anxious. Don't worry." 

In the mean while, between the sitting at Miller's 
house and this present one, I had been reading 
much on the subject of the trance and of "the ex- 
ternalization of the fluidic double," of which the 
Continental philosophers have much to say. If 
not convinced, I was at least under conviction that 
the liberation of the astral self was possible (if at 
all) only in the deepest trance, and I now attempted 
to discover by interrogation of Mrs. Smiley precisely 
what her own conception of the process was. 

"You told me once that you are conscious of 
leaving your body when in trance," I said. "Do 
you always have that sensation ?" 

"Yes, I almost always have a feeling of floating 
in the air," she answered. "It often seems as if I 
had risen a few feet above and a little to one side 
of my material self, to which I am somehow at- 
tached. I can see my body and what goes on 
around it, and yet, somehow, it all seems kind of 
dim, like a dream. It's hard to tell you just what I 
mean, but I seem to be in both places at once." 

"Do you ever have any perception of a physical 
connection between yourself and the sitters ?" 

She seemed to me to answer this a bit reluctantly. 
131 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Yes, I sometimes feel as though little shining 
threads went out from me and those in the circle, 
and sometimes these threads meet and twine them- 
selves around the cone or the pencil. This means 
that I draw power from all my sitters." 

This was in accord with the accounts of a "cob- 
webby feeling ,, which both Maxwell and Flamma- 
rion had drawn from their mediums. Maxwell 
makes much of this curious physical sensation 
which accompanied certain of M. Meurice's phe- 
nomena. Here also seemed to be an unconscious 
corroboration of Albert de Rochas's experiments in 
the "externalization of motivity," as he calls it. 
The "cobwebby feeling " of the fingers might mean 
an actual raying-out of some subtle form of matter. 
Indeed, M. Meurice, Maxwell's medium, declared 
he could see "a sheath of filaments pass from his 
fingers to the objects of experimentation." 

"Tell us about your journeys into the spirit land," 
I suggested. "You sometimes seem to go far away, 
do you not ?" 

Her voice became very wistful as she complied. 
"Yes, sometimes I seem to go to a far-off, bright 
world. I don't always want to come back, but 
there is a little shining white ribbon that unites my 
spirit with my body and holds me fast. Once 
when I had resolved never to return, that little band 
of light began to tug at me, and, although it broke 
my heart to leave my children, who were there with 

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THE SHADOW WORLD 

me, I yielded, and came back to life. It was very 
cheerful and lovely in that land, and I hated to come 
back to the cold and cruel earth-plane." 

"Can't you tell us about it more particularly ?" 

"No; it is so different from this plane that I have 
no words in which to describe it. All I can say is 
that it seems glorious and happy and very light." 

Something in her gentle accent excited Fowler's 
sympathy. "Mrs. Smiley, you have the blood of 
the martyrs in you. It takes courage to put one's 
self into the hands of a cold-blooded scientist like 
Miller. Even Garland, here, has no pity. He's 
like a hound on the trail of a fawn. It's all ' ma- 
terial' for him. Now, I am nothing but a mild- 
mannered editor. I have all the facts I require 
concerning the spirit world. I am busied with 
trying to make people happy here on this earth. 
But these scientific ' sharps' are avid for any fact 
which sustains the particular theory they happen 
to hold. Not one in a hundred will go where the 
facts lead. Their investigation is all a process of 
self-glorification, wherein each one thinks he must 
prove all the others liars or weak-minded in order 
to exalt himself." 

To this I could only reply: "I'm not a scientist, 
though, I must say, I sympathize with the scientific 
method. And as for my treatment of Mrs. Smiley, 
I am following exactly the advice of her controls. 
They assure me that they will take care of her," 

*33 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"And so they will," responded the devoted little 
psychic. 

By the closest questioning I had never been able 
to change a single line of her simple faith. She 
was perfectly certain of the spirit world. She had 
daily messages from "Wilbur" and her spirit 
father, partly by voices, but mainly by intuition. 
Her children hovered over her while she slept. 
"Mitchell" healed her if she were ill. "Maudie" 
comforted her loneliest hours. These voices, these 
hands were an integral part of her world — as nec- 
essary and as dear to her as those of her friends in 
the flesh. As she talked on I experienced a keen 
pang of regret. "Why disturb her belief in the 
spirit world ?" I asked myself. "Why attempt to 
reduce her manifestations to natural magic ? To 
rob her of her conviction that 'Maudie' is able to 
come back to her would leave her poor indeed." 

However, as the scientist cannot permit pity to 
hinder his purpose, I was determined to disasso- 
ciate the facts of spiritualism from the cult of spirit- 
ualism. I was not concerned with faith or conso- 
lation. I returned to a study of the facts as a part 
of nature. I was now observing closely the three 
levels of sleep into which Mrs. Smiley seemed to 
lower herself at will, or upon the suggestion of 
those in the circle. I had adopted the theory that 
in the lighter trance she spoke unconsciously and 
wrote automatically. In the second, and deeper, 

*34 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

trance she became the somnambulist possessed of 
diabolic cleverness, when, with the higher senses 
in abeyance, she was able to deceive and to elude 
all detection. In the third, or death-like, trance, I 
was ready to admit, for the sake of argument, that 
she was able, as De Rochas and Maxwell seem to 
have demonstrated, to exert an unknown form of 
force beyond the periphery of the body — that is 
to say, to move objects at a distance and to produce 
voices from the horn. 

To prove that she actually left the body would 
do much to explain the phenomena, and I was very 
eager to push toward this demonstration. I had 
now been her chief inquisitor for nearly thirty sit- 
tings, and had developed (apparently) the power 
to throw her into trance almost instantly. A few 
moments of monotonous humming, intoned while 
my hand rested upon hers, generally sufficed to 
bring the first stage of her trance. As we had been 
sitting for half an hour, I now proceeded to chant 
my potent charm, with intent to liberate the "spir- 
its" to their work. 

In a few moments she responded to my sugges- 
tion. A nervous tremor, now expected and now 
familiar, developed in her hands. This was fol- 
lowed by a slight, convulsive, straining movement 
of her arms. Her fingers grew hot, and seemed 
to quiver with electric energy. Ten minutes later 
all movement ceased. Her temperature abruptly 

135 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

fell. Her breath grew tranquil, and at last appeared 
to fail altogether. This was the first stage of her 
trance. "Take your hand away, Fowler," I said. 
"We have nothing to do now but wait. The psy- 
chic is now in the hands of i Mitchell. '" 

Fowler remarked, with some humor: "I can tell 
by your tone that you're still unconvinced." 

"I'm like the Scotchman — ready for convince- 
ment, but I'd like to see the man who could do it." 

After a few minutes' silence Mrs. Fowler asked: 
"What is the most conclusive phenomenon you have 
ever witnessed, Mr. Garland ?" 

"That's a little difficult to answer," I replied, 
slowly, "but at the moment I think the playing of a 
closed piano, which I once heard, is the most in- 
explicable of all my experiments." 

"What do you mean by 'the playing of a closed 
piano'?" queried Brierly. 

"I'll tell you about it. It happened during the 
second sitting I ever had with Mrs. Smiley. I was 
lecturing in her home town at the time, and after 
the close of my address, and while we were talking 
together, some one who was aware of Mrs. Smiley's 
mediumship suggested: 'Let's go somewhere and 
have a sitting.' The plan pleased me, and, after 
some banter pro and con, we made up a party of six 
or eight people, and adjourned to the home of the 
chairman of the lecture committee, a certain Miss 
Halsey. I want to emphasize the high character 

136 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

of Miss Halsey, as well as the casual way in which 
we happened to go to her rooms, for it puts out of the 
way all question of collusion. There was no premed- 
itation in the act, and Miss Halsey, who was the li- 
brarian of the city, and a pronounced disbeliever in 
spiritistic theories, had never met Mrs. Smiley before. 

"The circle was made up about equally of men 
and women, all of them well-known residents of 
the town. So far as most of the phenomena re- 
sulting from this sitting are concerned, they have 
very little value, for they took place in the dark 
and the medium was not closely guarded. It was 
only toward the end of the sitting, which, by-the- 
way, took place in Miss Halsey' s library and music- 
room, that the unexpected suddenly happened, the 
inexplicable came to pass. 

"We were gathered about a long table, with Mrs. 
Smiley at one end sandwiched between the editor 
of the local paper and myself. Behind me, and 
just within reach of my hand, stood an upright 
piano, with its cover down, but not locked. We 
had heard drumming on the table for some time, 
and writing had apparently taken place on the pads 
in the middle of the table. But all this was incon- 
clusive, for the reason that Mrs. Smiley was not 
fastened as she is now. I took it all with a pinch 
of salt. My mental reservations must have reached 
the minds of the 'guides,' for with startling sudden- 
ness they left the table and fell upon the top of 

137 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the piano. After drumming for some time, the 
invisible fingers seemed to drop to the strings be- 
neath, and a treble note was sounded as if plucked 
by a strong hand." 

" You are sure the piano was closed ?" 
"I am coming to that. Highly delighted by this 
immediate response to my request, I said to the 
'forces': 'Can't you demonstrate to us that these 
sounds are not accidental or caused by the jarring 
of cars in the street ? Can't you pluck the bass 
strings ?' Instantly, and with clangor, the lower 
strings replied. Thereupon I said: 'Can't you 
play a tune ?' To this only a confused jangle 
made answer. I was unable to secure any orderly 
succession of notes. 'Can't you keep time while I 
whistle ?' I insisted, with intent to show that in- 
telligence guided these sounds. The 'spirits' 
twanged three times in the affirmative, and when I 
began to whistle 'Yankee Doodle' the invisible 
musician kept perfect time, playing according to 
my request — now on the treble, now on the bass. 
Leaning far back in my chair, I placed my hand 
upon the lid of the closed piano, and called out to the 
others in the circle: 'The lid of the piano is closed. 
My hand is upon it. So far as the sense of touch 
and hearing are concerned, we have here an action 
absolutely unaccounted for by any scientific law. 

"This was at the moment absolutely convincing 
to me, as to the others, and I promptly reported the 

138 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

case to the American Psychical Society in Boston. 
Since then I may say I have had many experiments 
quite as convincing, but never a repetition of this 
peculiar phenomenon. It is useless to talk about 
secret wires, or a mouse running up and down the 
strings, or any other material explanation of this 
fact. It took place precisely as I relate it, and 
remains a mystery to this day." 

Fowler remained very calm. "Crookes saw in 
a full light an accordion playing beneath the touch 
of invisible fingers." 

"Yes," I retorted, in protest, "but this action 
of a closed piano happened in my presence, under 
my hand, and there is always so much more con- 
vincing quality in the miracle which happens in one's 
own house. But, seriously, that performance on 
the closed piano remains a profound mystification to 
me. If it had happened in the medium's house, or 
in the home of some one who knew her, I might 
have suspected fraud — but it did not! It happened 
in the study of one of the most respected women 
in the city, a student who did not believe in psychic 
phenomena. Furthermore, my own hand was on 
the lid of the piano. I was so convinced of Mrs. 
Smiley's possession of some occult force that I at 
once wrote to the society, telling them that a study 
of her phases would, in my judgment, be the most 
important work its directors could engage upon. 
This is one of my crack stories, and I wouldn't be- 

139 « 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

lieve it as related by any one else. However, you 
may read my report, which I made at the time, if 
that will be of any satisfaction to you." 

"Oh, I don't need it," responded Mr. Fowler. 
"I was merely trying to find out what your best ex- 
periments had been. Have they all been on the 
physical plane ?" 

"They are all on the physical plane — that is to 
say, on one plane for me. Any ' spirit manifesta- 
tion,' so long as we are what we are, must be an 
agitation of what we call 'molecules of matter,' and 
is to that extent physical. I have no patience with 
those highfilutin teachers who speak of matter as 
though it were ignoble in some way. Matter to me 
is as mysterious as spirit." 

At this moment a slight movement of the psychic 
arrested me, and as we listened the silvery sweet 
voice of "Maudie" issued from the darkness, saying: 
"Mr. Mitchell wants Mr. Garland to change places 
with Mr. Fowler. Be very careful as you move 
about. Dont joggle mama. It's very dangerous to 
her." 

As I rose to comply, "Maude" called out: "Mr. 
Mitchell wishes the threads fastened to mama s wrists. 
He wants you and Mr. Fowler to hold them the way 
you did at Mr. Miller s house" 

Turning up the lights, we tied a strong silk thread 
to each wrist, and passed the ends under each arm 
of the chair. Fowler took one of these ends while 

J 40 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

I retained the other. I then called the attention of 
Brierly to the fact that the table was seventeen inches 
from the feet of the psychic, and that the fastenings 
were unchanged. When his examination was com- 
pleted, the lights were again turned off, and the 
circuit of hands restored. 

"Maudie" then requested that the pieces of cone 
be put together and placed on the floor beside the 
table. Fowler did this, and drew a chalk mark 
about it, numbering it "Position No. I." Im- 
mediately after his return to his seat the table was 
strongly pushed away from the psychic. It moved 
in impulses, an inch or two at a time, until it was 
certainly six or eight inches farther from the psychic. 

It is impossible to conceive how this movement 
without contact takes place; but, then, what do we 
know about the action of the magnet on a pile of 
iron filings ? How can a thought in the brain of 
man contract a set of muscles and lift a cannon-ball ? 
At bottom we do not know how the will, as we call 
it, crosses the chasm between mind and matter — 
we don't even know there is a chasm. 

" Do you feel any motion in your thread, Fowler ?" 
I asked. 

"Nothing but a faint quiver," he replied. 

"Neither do I, and yet the table moved." 

"The table is crowding against me!" called Mrs. 
Fowler, in some excitement. 

The fact that the table moved toward us and 
141 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

directly away from the psychic was in itself suspi- 
cious; but, as a matter of fact, at other sittings 
we obtained sidewise movements of the table — 
generally to the left. The present experiment did 
not stand alone. You must remember also that the 
table was at this time more than two feet from Mrs. 
Smiley's toes, her dress was tacked to the floor, and 
her ankles controlled by a tape whose ends were 
nailed to the floor four feet behind her chair. 

" So far as matter can testify, Mrs. Smiley is not 
concerned in this movement of the table," I said. 
"The question is now up to us. Which of us is 
doing this ?" 

"I am not," answered Brierly. 

"Nor I," declared Fowler. 

"Nor I," chimed in Mrs. Fowler. 

At this moment the psychic began to stir again. 
"Look out!" I called, warningly. "Let every hand 
be accounted for. Some new demonstration is pre- 
paring. These periods of suffering are strangely 
like the pangs of childbirth. I wonder if, after all, 
Archdeacon Colley was not in the right when he 
asserted that he had seen the miraculous issue of 
phantoms. I confess that when I read it first I 
smiled with the rest, for his description of the proc- 
ess was not very poetic. He declared that he saw a 
white vapor steam from the side of the psychic, like 
vapor from a kettle, forming a little cloud, and from 
this nebulous mass various phantasms appeared, 

142 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ranging from a little child to a full-grown man. It 
is curious how exactly similar all the reports of this 
process are. Crookes speaks of a milky-white vapor 
which condensed to a form, and Richet and Max- 
well describe it as a sort of condensing process. 
I have seen it myself, but could not believe in the 
evidence of my own eyes. One can see all kinds of 
things in the dark." 

Peace had again fallen upon our psychic — the 
peace of exhaustion; as if, her struggles being over, 
her flesh-free spirit were at large in the room. The 
silence was profound, yet somehow thrilling with 
potency. 

In this hush the megaphone was lifted slightly and 
dropped, making us all start. It was as if a feeble 
hand had tried to manipulate it without success. 
"Let us keep test conditions," I urged. "Please 
do not make a movement now without warning me 
of your intentions. Keep the circuit closed." Here 
I addressed "Wilbur": "Let's see if you can handle 
the cone under strictly test conditions. Come now, 
lift it! Lift it!" I repeated the command with 
intent to concentrate all will-power of both psychic 
and sitters upon the thing desired, as Maxwell was 
accustomed to do in his experiments with Meurice. 

Several times the forces strove to carry out my 
wishes, but could not. Twice the horn rose from 
the carpet, only to fall back helplessly. Fowler 
placed it in position each time, marking each new 

H3 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

position, while I took note of the convulsive tremor 
which swept from time to time over the psychic. 
It was exactly as if she were a dynamo generating 
some unknown electrical energy, which, after ac- 
cumulating for a time in her organism (as in a jar), 
was discharged along the direction of our will, and 
yet I could not detect any marked synchronism of 
movement between these impulses and the move- 
ment of the horn. 

After each fall of the cone she moaned and writhed, 
but not till the hush of death came over her did the 
horn move. So intense was the silence each time 
that we could hear the slightest breath, the minutest 
movement of the tin as it scraped along the rug. 

"It is useless to talk of a confederate," I re- 
marked; "it is of no value to refer this action to the 
hands of the psychic. We must look to subtler 
causes for this phenomenon. Perhaps Maxwell's 
theory that some magnetic power is liberated by the 
contraction of the larger muscles will account for it, 
but in no other way." 

At last the megaphone soared into the air, passed 
over our heads, and dropped gently upon the table. 
It did not fall with a bang; on the contrary, it seemed 
to descend gently — as if under perfect control of both 
hand and eye. And yet I assert there was nothing 
to indicate that the psychic shared in these move- 
ments. She lay as still as a corpse. Nothing but a 
minute continuous tremor in the thread told that 

144 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

she was still alive. I was enormously impressed 
by the silence. The darkness seemed athrill with 
mystery — not the mystery of the discarnate soul, but 
the mystery of the X-ray. I felt that we were 
ourselves involved in a production of each and every 
one of these movements. 

" There is no use attempting to deny this fact," I 
insisted to the other sitters. "Either the psychic 
is able to control that cone by the exercise of her will 
over some unknown invisible force, or she has left 
her body and is now at work, a sentient entity in the 
air about us. There is the same precision in all this 
which Lombroso observed. It really seems that the 
medium has the faculty of using her senses at a 
distance. To say that she is handling that cone 
with her ordinary physical limbs is absurd. This 
single inexplicable moving of a mass of matter from 
A to B makes the experiments of Crookes and Max- 
well very much more vital to me. I shall reread 
their books with new interest." 

This result should have awed me, but it did not. 
I felt a deep interest, of course, but no bewilderment. 
My mind was perfectly clear and my senses alert to 
every sound, every ray of light. 

At this moment the psychic again began to twist 
and turn as if in pain, and at last the little voice of 
"Maudie" anxiously asked: "Is Mr. Garland going 
to take a train at seven o'clock ?" 

This query convinced me that deep in the sub- 
145 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

conscious mind of the psychic lay the knowledge 
that I had thought of catching this train, and that a 
sense of my plan was disturbing her and interfering 
with our experiment. To remove the uneasiness, I 
replied: "No, I am going to stay; for I think 'Mr. 
Mitchell' has something very special in store for me. 
Tell her not to think of it any more. I am in no 
hurry. I have no appointment elsewhere." 

To this "Maudie" replied: "Mr. Mitchell says, 
1 Thank you '; he will do the best he can for yon. He 
says go down-stairs now and get your supper, heave 
mania just where she is. He will take care of her." 

As we had been sitting for nearly three hours in 
a dark close room we welcomed this suggestion from 
our thoughtful guide, although it tended to make 
the sitting less conclusive. As I followed my hostess 
down the stairs I shared her remorseful pity of poor 
Mrs. Smiley, bound and helpless in her inquisitorial 
seat. "Mitchell" did not ask that she be fed, only 
that she be covered with a shawl to keep her warm. 

"If she is doing this for her own entertainment/'' 
I said, "she has singular tastes. If she is doing it 
to advance the cause of spiritualism, she is a noble 
creature — though a mistaken devotee, in the eyes 
of Miller." 

Our hostess's uneasiness concerning the psychic 
made the meal a hurried one. None of us felt very 
much like eating, and I could see that Fowler was 
disposed to cut corners. "Well, Garland, what 

146 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

do you intend to do with the facts obtained this 
afternoon ? You have plenty of authority behind 
which to shelter yourself. Why not admit the truth ? 
So far as I am concerned, I am willing to swear that 
Mrs. Smiley had no actual hand in the movement 
of the cone." 

To this I replied: "From one point of view, 
these phenomena are slight; but considered in the 
light of the manifestation of a totally new force, they 
are tremendous in their implication, and I must be 
absolutely sure of them before I assert their truth. 
The most impressive fact of all is that every phe- 
nomenon we obtain coheres with those obtained by 
Maxwell, Crookes, and Flammarion. It will not 
do to admit the spirit hypothesis, or grant the 
objectivity of phantasms, merely because we have 
proved the movements of a particle of matter from 
A to B without a known push or a pull, for such 
admission is far-reaching. If Maxwell is right, these 
phenomena — even the most complicated of them — 
are metapsychical, but perfectly normal. For ex- 
ample, he says: 'A movement without contact was 
forthcoming this afternoon. I placed a table upside 
down on a linen sheet. M. Meurice and I then put 
our hands on the sheet, some distance away from 
the table. The table turned completely over. The 
movement was performed slowly and gently. It 
was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sunlight 
was streaming in through an open window.' Now 

H7 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

here was a perfectly clear case of telekinesis, with no 
one present but Dr. Mawell and his friend; but the 
turning over of the table does not imply the action 
of spirit hands." 

"I don't see why not," responded Mrs. Fowler, 
"if Dr. Maxwell had mediumistic power." 

"It was Meurice who had the power; but it was 
a physical power, which went out from his organism 
like heat. He was often ill after his experiments, 
and felt nausea and a disturbing weakness in the 
solar plexus, as though his bodily powers had been 
seriously drawn upon. I have felt this myself — or 
so it seemed; perhaps I imagined it." 

Fowler struck in: "But what will you do with 
materializations such as Dr. Richet studied at the 
Villa Carmen in Algiers ? What will you do with 
the photographs of the spectre of the helmeted 
soldier which he obtained under what he declares 
were test conditions ?" 

" But were they ? That's the point." 

"I am willing to trust a man of Richet's wide 
knowledge and known skill in experimentation. 
When he says he saw, touched, and heard the ap- 
parition of a man, I am ready to believe that he had 
taken quite as many precautions as his newspaper 
critics would have done. He saw a helmeted 
soldier leave the seance cabinet and walk about. 
He clasped his hand, he affirmed, and found it warm 
and jointed (perfectly real), and he secured the 

148 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

breath of this phantom in a tube of baryta so un- 
mistakably that the liquid was chemically changed 
in accordance with his test. There are thousands 
of other well-authenticated cases of materialization. 
I have seen scores of them myself. I am only quot- 
ing Richet because I know you believe in his 
methods." 

"I do, indeed; but he may have been deceived, 
all the same. The failure of all his experiments in 
Algiers lay in the fact that he was never able to nail 
his psychic down, as we have done. He was the on- 
looker, after all — not the experimenter he should 
have been and wished to be. Really his photographs 
of the spirit 'B. B.' have not the weight as evidence 
of the physical manifestation, as the phenomena 
which we have this evening secured." 

Fowler rose. "I have his report in my library. 
Let me get it." 

He returned in a few minutes with a small blue 
book in his hand, from which he began to read with 
gusto: "'I saw, as it were, a white luminous ball 
floating over the floor; then rising straight upward, 
very rapidly, as though issuing from a trap-door, ap- 
peared B. B., born, so to speak, out of the flooring 
outside the curtain, which had not stirred. He tries, 
as it seems to me, to come among us, but he has a 
limping, hesitating gait. At one moment he reels 
as if about to fall, limping on one leg; then he goes 
toward the opening of the curtains of the cabinet, 

149 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Then, without (as I believe) opening the curtains, 
he sinks down, disappears into the floor/ " 

"What are you reading from ?" I asked. 

"I am reading from the report which Richet made 
to the Annals of Psychical Science. He goes on to 
say: 'It appears to me that this experiment is decisive, 
for the formation of a luminous spot on the ground, 
which then changes into a living and walking being, 
cannot seemingly be produced by any trick. On 
the day after this experiment I minutely examined 
the flagstones [which made up the floor of the seance 
room], and also the coach-house and stable im- 
mediately under that part of the kiosque.' There 
was no trap-door, and the cobwebs on the roof of 
the stable were undisturbed. The photographs of 
the apparition were taken on five different plates 
simultaneously, and the figure is the same on each." 

"Yes; but those experiments were afterward 
made of no value by the confession of a coachman, 
who admitted his complicity in the fraud." 

"No; that story is not true. The experiments 
stand, and Richet still defends both himself and the 
circle against the charge of fraud." 

" But read on," I insisted. " Does he not say that, 
in spite of all his proof, he will not even hazard an 
affirmation of the phenomena ?" 

"Yes, he does say that," admitted Fowler; "but 
he also says: 'I have thought it my duty to mention 
these facts in the same way as Sir William Crookes 

*5° 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

thought it his duty in more difficult times to report 
the history of " Katie King." I do not believe I 
have been deceived. I am convinced that I have 
been present at realities, not deceptions. Certainly 
I cannot say in what materialization consists. / 
am only ready to maintain that there is something 
profoundly mysterious in it, which will change from 
top to bottom our ideas on nature and on life?' 

"He apparently was profoundly affected by what 
he saw," I assented, "and I am perfectly willing 
to grant that the character of his friends in the circle 
add value to what he saw. But, after all, the fact 
of materialization is so tremendous in its implica- 
tions that even to admit its possibility is to admit 
more than any man of our day, who has been trained 
in scientific ways, is willing to be answerable for. 
However, the most extraordinary story I have ever 
read is that of Archdeacon Colley, Rector of Stock- 
ton, Warwickshire, who declared in a public lecture 
— and many times since, over his signature — that he 
saw the miraculous issue of phantoms born directly 
from the side of a psychic. He declares he saw 
a winsome little girl emerge — a laughing, golden- 
haired creature, as alive as any one. I confess that 
this is too much for me, and yet if a Spanish soldier 
can be born from a spot of light, anything at all that 
anybody may imagine can happen. — But let us 
return to our own psychics." 

We found Mrs. Smiley sitting precisely as we left 
151 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

her, and, picking up our thread, Fowler and I located 
the table and the cone and reassumed our positions. 
The table, which was quite out of reach of Mrs. 
Smiley's hands, now stood with its end toward the 
three of us, sitting in a crescent shape opposite the 
psychic — a position which produced, so the guides 
said, one pole of a battery. 

Hardly were we seated in our places when the 
psychic suddenly awoke and spoke in her natural 
voice, and I for one felt that the sitting was over. 
I was perfectly certain that nothing could happen 
out of the ordinary unless the medium were in either 
one or the other of her states of trance. 

I was now both amazed and delighted to find 
that the cone could be drummed upon and voices 
delivered through it while Mrs. Smiley, mentally 
normal, took part in the conversation. My theories 
were upset. I was completely mystified, though I 
said nothing of this to Fowler. 

Once or twice Mrs. Fowler declared she heard the 
sound of lips, and at last a voice came to her speak- 
ing the name of her father. His voice answered 
some of her questions correctly, but could not utter 
the pet name which her father used to call her. 
This breakdown of the individuality of the phantom 
voices is very characteristic. This ended the sitting. 
The voices had not been as strong as we had hoped 
for, but as we threw on the light we found a num- 
ber of messages written upon the sheets of paper 

152 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

which Fowler had put in the middle of the table. 
These messages were lying with the writing wrong 
side up, so far as the psychic was concerned. Al- 
together we felt that the results were both signifi- 
cant and encouraging, and we agreed to meet three 
days later in the same room and under the same 
conditions. 

"What I want to do now is to hold your arms while 
the horn is in the. air, or while the writing is going 
on," I said to Mrs. Smiley. 

And to this she replied: "You may make any 
test you please. I feel that in this house my powers 
will return." 

"That is a real gain," I said, to encourage her. 



VI 



THE next sitting was an almost exact duplica- 
tion of the last so far as the binding (and 
nailing) of the psychic was concerned, except that 
we sewed two bands of tape to her sleeves and 
four tacks were used at each wrist. Her feet were 
tied separately in the middle of a long tape, and the 
ends brought together, carried back beneath her 
chair, and tacked to the floor. As before, we 
placed the large end of the cone on the floor, out 
of her reach, leaving the smaller end on the table, 
which we left just out of her utmost reach. On 
the table we placed some sheets of paper specially 
marked and dated, and took our seats as usual. 

No one was present at this sitting but Mr. and 
Mrs. Fowler and myself. Even the faithful Brierly 
had been unable to share in this, the twenty-ninth 
experiment. I was delighted to have the circle 
narrow down, for Fowler was a good investigator 
and a man of vast experience in psychic matters. 
Outside interference was absolutely excluded. 
" Whatever happens to-night, Fowler," I said, "you 
and I or the spirits must be responsible for it." 

*54 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

We began, as usual, by putting Mrs. Smiley into 
hypnotic sleep. In a few moments the familiar shud- 
dering action took place. Her palms grew moist. 
She said she found it difficult to submit to our touch. 
She asked us to put our fingers above hers, and 
soon after, in the midst of our singing, her voice 
ceased, her hands grew heavy as lead, and lay per- 
fectly limp and dead in their bonds. 

Again following the guidance of the raps, Fowler 
and I moved back and sat opposite her, with Mrs. 
Fowler between us. "Maudie" then spoke from 
the psychic's lips, asking us to move the table farther 
away. This I did, leaving it at least twelve inches 
from the utmost tips of her fingers. "Maudie" 
then asked us to take up the larger half of the cone 
and unite it with the smaller part, and lay the entire 
cone flat across the table. 

We did so, marking its position by means of 
chalk. It was nearly three feet from the utmost 
extension of the psychic's hands, and yet, almost 
immediately, tapping came upon the cone keeping 
time to our singing. Later, sounds were produced 
like the beating of a kettle-drum. A hammering 
was then carried on as if within the cone, and 
"Maudie" spoke, telling us to go down and get 
supper, as before. 

I regretted this necessity very much, for up to 
this moment all had been clear sailing; the tapping 
on the cone was inexplicable on the basis of any 

155 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

normal action of the psychic; but to leave her alone, 
even while so well accounted for, weakened the test. 

I said as much to Fowler as we sat at the din- 
ner-table. He admitted his own disappointment. 
"However," he added, philosophically, "we have 
to take these things as they offer. We can't con- 
struct them." 

We discussed the implications of the sittings we 
had already held. "It isn't one thing only," he 
reminded me; "it is because of the larger fact 
that one phenomenon supports another that one 
comes to believe. Thus far to-night we have 
proved that Mrs. Smiley is not concerned with the 
drumming on the cone, haven't we ?" 

"Yes; but I want to hold her hands while the 
drumming takes place. I want to hear her voice at 
the same time with * Mitchell's.'" 

"We'll get it," he responded, confidently. And 
a little later we returned to the room where our 
psychic was sitting, still in deep trance. 

After some moments of waiting, "Maudie" said: 
"Mr. Mitchell says take the table away and put 
the cone in its place." 

We moved the table a short distance to the left, 
and I put the cone in the centre of the rug where 
the table had stood, and marked the position of the 
cone. The psychic then passed through a period 
of suffering, of effort, but nothing took place. Again 
"Maudie" spoke, asking us to restore the table 

i 5 6 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

and cone to their former positions. " Evidently the 
experiment designed by ' Mitchell' has failed," I 
said, " but these failures instruct us." 

A convulsive restlessness again seized upon the 
psychic, and "Maudie" asked us to sing. I hum- 
med softly, in order to hear anything that might take 
place. A minute clicking sound at once developed, 
as though some one were lightly beating the cone 
with a key. These clicks answered our questions. 
It was "Wilbur" once more. I asked him if he 
were going to be able to speak to us, and he tapped 
" Ye s." Soon after this the cone was swung into the 
air and "Wilbur's" throaty whisper was heard. 
I asked him if the psychic could not be awake and 
speak while he was present, and he answered: "Yes; 
we have planned that." 

Even as he spoke Mrs. Smiley passed into what 
seemed like a struggle for breath and awoke! 

"Are you with us, Mrs. Smiley ?" asked Fowler. 

"Yes. What time is it ?" 

"About half-past eight. How do you feel?" 

"Very numb and cold," she answered, plain- 
tively. 

"I don't wonder at that," I remarked. "You've 
been sitting there for five hours." 

"Is anybody present?" she asked, anxiously. 

I knew what she meant, and answered: "Yes, 
'Wilbur' is here — or was a few moments ago. Are 
you still with us, 'Wilbur' ?" 

157 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

A rapping on the cone made vigorous answer, 
and a few seconds later the xone took flight and 
"Wilbur's" voice resumed general conversation 
with us. It was noticeable to me all through this 
sitting, as at others, that neither "Wilbur" nor 
"Mitchell" nor "Maud" ever addressed the psychic; 
they spoke of her, but never to her. 

I requested further tests. "'Wilbur,' I want the 
privilege of going to the psychic's side. I don't like 
this long-distance experiment. I want to get closer 
to these facts — if they are facts." 

"You shall have the privilege" was the reassur- 
ing answer. 

"Shall I go now?" 

There was no reply through the horn, but a tap- 
ping on the table gave a doubtful "Yes" and I crept 
slowly forward and took a seat at Mrs. Smiley's 
right hand. "I am very close to the ultimate mys- 
tery, Mrs. Smiley," I said, as I placed my hand upon 
her wrist. "Proceed, 'Wilbur/ Let me hear your 
voice now." 

With tense expectation, I put my ear close to the 
psychic's lips and listened breathlessly. The horn 
soared into the air and was drummed there, as if 
to show that it was out of the reach of the psychic, 
but no voice came from it! This was a disappoint- 
ment to me, as well as to Fowler, and I banteringly 
said: "You know this failure is suspicious, 'Wil- 
bur.' It seems to indicate that Mrs. Smiley is only 

i 5 8 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

a wonderful ventriloquist, after all. Can't you prove 
that she is independent of your voice ? Can't you 
do something decisive at this moment ?" 

No reply came to this; but while my hand was 
firmly pressed upon her wrist (both sleeves being 
nailed to the chair), the loose leaves of the paper in 
the centre of the table were whisked away to the 
left. I could follow their flight, and we all heard 
their deposition on a couch in a corner of the 
room. 

"Fowler," I said, "are you controlling your wife's 
hands ?" 

"Yes; we had nothing to do with that noise." 

This was another tense moment, for the move- 
ment of those papers was very ghostly indeed. 
We had demonstrated clearly that their movement 
was supernormal. 

"May I come forward ?" asked Fowler. 

Tap — "No," was the decided answer. 

I then asked: "' Wilbur,' do you want me to 
change with Fowler and control Mrs. Fowler's 
hands ?" 

An emphatic "Tes" was rapped in reply. 

"They seem as anxious for a conclusive test as 
we are," remarked Fowler. "Did you mean you 
didn't want Mrs. Fowler unaccounted for ?" 

A perfect fusillade of raps followed: "Tes, yes, 
yes." 

Fowler then came forward to Mrs. Smiley's left, 
159 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

while I returned to the table. Taking both of Mrs. 
Fowler's hands in mine, and setting the toes of my 
shoes upon hers, I awaited developments. At this 
moment, while Fowler was pressing the psychic's 
imprisoned wrists, the cone banged about most 
furiously, describing wide circles entirely out of 
Mrs. Smiley's reach. This action was another per- 
fectly convincing test of the psychic's supernormal 
powers. As the same movement had taken place 
with each of us in control of the psychic, each was 
absolved from any complicity in the matter; but I 
did not forget my further test. "Mrs. Smiley," I 
said, "I want Mr. Fowler to return to his seat, and 
I want to place my hand over your lips — or to muffle 
you in some way. / must prove that you have 
nothing to do with the production of those voices. 
Will you permit this test ?" 

"Certainly," she answered, with patient sweet- 
ness. "You may gag me in any way you please. 
I am perfectly sure you can secure the proof you 
want." Upon this hint I acted. Taking a large 
kerchief from my pocket, I tied it tightly around her 
mouth, knotting it at the back, and then, in grow- 
ing excitement, challenged the ghostly voice: "Now, 
'Wilbur,' let's hear from you." 

A moment later the voice came from the cone, but 
apparently very much muffled and blurred. "You 
are not articulating well," I rather sarcastically ob- 
served. 

1 60 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Instantly the voice came out clearly, more sharp- 
ly than ever before. "/ was fooling you!" jeered 
"Wilbur." 

We all applauded. "There, that's better," I 
said. "Your voice improved wonderfully." 

"Wilbur" chuckled with glee. "I've taken a 
lozenge" he whimsically retorted, expressing a very 
human delight in our mystification. 

Fowler then said: "Now let's consider this a 
moment, Garland. Suppose Mrs. Smiley has been 
able to loosen the gag. How does she handle the 
cone ? We will suppose she is a marvellous ven- 
triloquist. How does she write on the pads on the 
table, and how does she whisk them away ? You 
see, it isn't the matter of one thing, but of all that 
has happened." 

"Yes, I admit that everything points to an exer- 
cise of supernormal force. It really looks, so far as 
anything in the dark can look, like spirits, but I pre- 
fer to think Mrs. Smiley has the power to project 
her will in some way." 

"I don't see how we are going to escape the spirit 
hypothesis," replied Fowler. 

"'Mitchell,'" I said, addressing the phantom, "I 
want to examine that gag, and I want to hold 
both hands of the psychic. Will you permit that ?" 

There was no reply to this, and Fowler offered 
an explanation: "We had that test at a previous 
sitting." 

161 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

I explained to the invisible ones: "'Wilbur,' it is 
absolutely essential that you should prove to me that 
your voice is not dependent upon the vocal chords 
of the psychic. You see the importance of this, do 
you not, Mrs. Smiley ?" 

"Indeed, I do," she earnestly answered, her voice 
sounding very faint and muffled through the kerchief. 
"I am anxious for the test." 

"Very well, then. Now I want you to sing a song, 
and while you are singing I am going to insist on 
'Wilbur's' speaking. Will you do that, 'Wilbur' ?" 
The cone was drummed upon as if in vigorous 
promise of success. 

Mrs. Smiley sang, or rather hummed; but there 
was no response on the part of the ghostly voices, 
and a moment later she called, faintly: "The kerchief 
is slipping down, Mr. Garland." 

I rose and went to her side. As I untied the 
kerchief, she said, plaintively: "I am sorry we didn't 
get the voices. I am sure we can if we try again. 
Please try again." And a vigorous drumming on 
the cone seemed to second her plea. 

However, it was getting very late, and I said: 
"I think we will postpone further experiment to- 
night. What are your sensations now ?" 

"I am almost paralyzed, and still deaf, too, but 
that often happens. My feet are as if they did not 



exist." 



But your mind is perfectly normal ?" 
162 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Yes, it seems to be." 

Soon after this I returned to my seat; the cone 
was lifted high into the air silently, broken apart, 
and then, with the small end jangling inside the 
larger one, was carried over the table and back to 
the floor. It fell with a bang that seemed final and 
decisive. "That is 'good-bye,'" said Mrs. Smiley. 

Upon lighting the gas we found our victim as 
before, sitting absolutely as we had left her. The 
table edge was twenty-four inches from her finger- 
tips. The place where the cone lay, which we had 
marked with chalk when it was first drummed upon, 
was thirty-six inches from one hand and forty inches 
from the other. But the most inexplicable of all 
— the tangible, permanent record — was the seven 
sheets of paper which were lying upon a couch six 
feet from Mrs. S mi ley's left hand. They were all 
written upon legibly, and pinned together with a 
black pin, which had been thrust through the writing. 
"Wilbur" had scrawled his name, Mrs. Fowler's fa- 
ther's name was signed to a message, and there were 
other signatures unknown to any of us. The pencil 
was on the carpet, forty inches from Mrs. Smiley's 
hand. The leaves of paper, at the moment when they 
were grasped and lifted, were more than forty inches 
from her finger-tips. How this was done I do not 
know: but of this I am absolutely sure: the psychic 
did not remove them from the table by means of 
her ordinary, material limbs. Barring the failure 

163 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

to disassociate her voice from that of " Wilbur," 
she had met every demand upon her. Her powers 
were truly magical. I cannot say I saw the cone 
move, but I have proven that the psychic did not 
surreptitiously touch it or fraudulently write upon 
the papers during this sitting. I cannot swear that 
Fowler was controlling his wife's hands while the 
cone was floating (and while I held the psychic's 
imprisoned hands), but I believe he was. In short, 
barring the one sense of sight — an all-important one, 
I admit — these happenings were convincing and fit- 
ted in with phenomena which I had secured with 
other psychics. 

Nevertheless, I was not satisfied. I wanted 
Brierly, or some other fifth person, in the room, in 
order that both of the psychic's hands could be 
controlled at the same time that Mrs. Fowler's 
were secured. So long as a single hand was left free, 
the doubter would be warranted in questioning our 
results. 

The next two or three sittings were partial failures 
— so much so that I made no record of them. Possi- 
bly, conditions were not strict enough. At any rate, 
the final and most conclusive sitting came three days 
later. It was held in Fowler's house. We followed 
the conditions of the previous sitting very closely — 
the same room, the same table, the same fastenings 
as before. 

There was present a friend of Fowler's, a young 
164 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

man who was possessed of some psychic power. 
We will call him Frank. Fowler and I took entire 
charge of the psychic, and her bonds were even more 
carefully nailed than before. We began the seance, 
as before, by putting her to sleep. 

Not long after "Maudie" spoke, saying: "Mr. 
Mitchell wishes the thread fastened to mama s hands 
in the way Mr. Garland desires." 

I fastened a strong thread to each wrist as I had 
done several times before, passing the ends under 
the chair-arm in such wise that any movement of 
the psychic would be plainly and instantly detected. 
We then returned to our seats, and, though condi- 
tions seemed favorable, no marked phenomena took 
place; the cone was lifted, it is true, but we were 
used to this now, and accepted it as quite common- 
place. 

At six o'clock the voice of "Maudie" came: 
"Please go down to supper. Mr. Mitchell says he 
will be able to give you what you ask for after you 
return." 

I did not ask to what he referred, but I had in mind 
the test to prove the voices independent of the psy- 
chic's vocal organs, and at the dinner we discussed 
methods by which this could be made clear. 

" If they will let me put my hand over her mouth," 
I said to Fowler, "I will be satisfied." 

"Do you mean that you will believe in spirits ?" 
he smilingly challenged me. 

165 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Oh, I won't go so far as to promise that, but I 
confess it would help to prove their existence." 

"We may be about to get something more con- 
clusive than that." 

"Let us fix our minds on two things: first, to 
get the writing, or at least movement, with every 
hand controlled; and, second, the voices, while one 
of us covers Mrs. Smiley's mouth with a hand." 

"Very well," acquiesced Fowler. "But the un- 
expected is what usually happens in these per- 
formances." 

We were gone but twenty minutes, so eager were 
we for our demonstration. We found everything 
quite as when we left: the psychic was asleep, the 
fastenings undisturbed. Fowler and I regained 
our threads and resumed our places at the sides of 
the table, while Frank and Mrs. Fowler sat close 
together at the end opposite Mrs. Smiley. I ask 
the reader to recall that the psychic's ankles were 
encircled with tape which was nailed to the floor 
behind her chair. Two bands of tape, after being 
sewn to her cuffs, had been tacked solidly to the 
chair, three strong tacks were driven down through 
the hem of her dress, and, finally, Fowler and I 
were holding the threads which, after encircling the 
psychic's wrists, passed under the chair-arm. 

And yet, in spite of all these bonds and precau- 
tions, the cone was almost immediately lifted, and 
"Mitchell" spoke through it. In a deep, clear, 

166 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

well - delivered, and decidedly masculine whisper, 
and with stately periods, he promised the complete 
co-operation of the spirit world in the great work 
to which I was devoting myself. He directed his 
exhortation to me, as usual; and for the benefit 
of those who think the spirits are always trivial 
or foolish, I wish to say that " Mitchell's " remarks 
were dignified and very suggestive. He produced 
in my mind the distinct impression of a serious 
man of seventy, ornate of rhetoric, but never vague 
or wandering in his thought, and he never went 
outside the circle of Mrs. Smiley's mind. 

For fully a quarter of an hour he discussed with 
me the value of the investigation which we were 
pursuing. "I and my band," he assured me, "are 
working as hard from our side as you are from yours, 
equally intent upon opening up channels of com- 
munication between the two worlds." He solemnly 
urged me to proceed in this "grand work" and 
at last said, "Good-bye for the present" and fell 
silent. 

The cone was then deposited on the table, and 
"Maud" said: "If Mr. Garland and Mr. Fowler 
will go quietly up to mama s side, holding all the 
time tightly to the threads, ' Mr. Mitchell 9 will do what 
Mr. Garland so much desires. Please be very careful 
not to touch mama until I tell you. Keep as far 
apart as you can as you go up to her. When you 
reach my mama s side, you may put one hand on her 

167 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

head and one on her wrist. 'Mr. Mitchell 9 says 
please have Frank take Mrs. Fowler s hands, so that 
every hand in the circle is accounted for." 

I was now very eager and very alert. I felt that 
at last, after many, many requests and many trials, I 
was about to secure a clear, complete, and satisfying 
demonstration. Surely no trickster would permit 
such rigorous control as that toward which we were 
now invited. I was sorry that Miller was not 
present to share with me the satisfaction of the mo- 
ment. My admiration went out toward this heroic 
little woman, who was enduring so much pain and 
suspicion for the sake of science. "She believes in 
herself," I thought. " If she succeeds, all honor to 
her." ' 

Slowly we crept to her side, being careful to touch 
nothing until directed by the voice of "Maud." 
At last the childish voice said: "Mr. Garland may 
put his right hand on top of mama s head and his 
left hand on her wrist. Mr. Fowler may place his 
left hand above Mr. Garland's and his right hand on 
mama s wrist. 'Mr. MitchelV says he will then see 
if the voices will not come." 

I then said aloud: "My right hand is on the 
psychic's head, my left is on her wrist." 

Fowler repeated: "My left hand is above Gar- 
land's right, which is on the psychic's head, and my 
own right hand is on the right wrist of the psychic. 
Now, ' Wilbur,' go ahead." 

168 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Our challenge was almost instantly caught up. 
While thus double- safeguarding the psychic, the 
cone, which was resting on the table a full yard away, 
rose with a sharp, metallic, scraping sound, and 
remained in the air for fully half a minute, during 
which I called out, sharply: "We are absolutely con- 
trolling the psychic; her hands are motionless; 
Mrs. Fowler, be sure you are holding both of Frank's 
hands." 

"I have both his hands in mine," she answered. 

As the cone was gently returned to the carpet 
Fowler was moved to say: "Garland, that was a 
supreme test of the psychic. She was absolutely 
not concerned in any known way with that move- 
ment. Save for a curious throbbing, wave-like mo- 
tion in her scalp, she did not move. If she lifted 
the horn, it was by the exercise of a force unrecog- 
nized by science." 

To this I was forced to agree. I here definitely 
declare that the psychic was not concerned with the 
flight of the cone in any way known to biology. If 
she produced the voices, they too must have been 
examples of supernormal ventriloquism, for they 
came through the megaphone. Of that I am as 
certain as one can be of an auditory impression. 

A few moments later we returned to our seats, 
while "Wilbur" and "Mitchell" and several other 
voices spoke to us. Fowler, now that I had ad- 
mitted telekinesis, wanted me to go further. "Is 
12 169 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the psychic speaking to us," he asked, "or are these 
voices independent of her ?" 

"An investigator is never satisfied," I answered. 
"I must have the voices through the cone while I am 
covering the psychic's mouth." 

To this "Mitchell" replied: "We are doing all 
we can, and we will yet he able to meet every demand 
you make upon us" 

"I am anxious for conviction," I said. "I want 
to secure the voice of the psychic and your voice at 
the same time, c Mr. Mitchell/ Can you do that for 
me r 

He seemed to hesitate, and at last said: "We will 
try." I perceived in his tone a certain doubt and 
indecision. Again we were permitted to hold the 
psychic's wrists, and, as before, the cone was lifted 
and drummed upon as if to show its position high 
in the air; but no voices came. Hidden forces 
seemed to be struggling for escape beneath our 
hands; the woman's brain seemed a powerful dyna- 
mo. I could not rid myself of a sense that there 
was an actual externalization of the psychic's nerve 
force, and with this, conviction I could well under- 
stand why the command had so often been given 
not to touch her unbidden. Suppose the poor 
naked "astral body" were abroad and a strong 
light were suddenly turned upon it! 

Now came on a singularly engrossing game of 
"hide-and-seek." Convinced that Mrs. Smiley 

170 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

was innocent of any trick in the movement of the 
horn, I tried every expedient to satisfy myself that 
"Wilbur's" voice was independent of her own; 
but I did not succeed. Mrs. Smiley spoke almost 
at the same moment but never precisely synchro- 
nous with Wilbur's whisper. She answered all my 
questions perfectly unconcerned and unexcited, 
lending herself to my experiments. All in vain. 
At no time did I succeed in getting "Wilbur's" 
voice at precisely the same moment with her own, 
though the whisper, following swiftly on her speech, 
interjected remarks as if echoing her questions. 
There was always an approximate interval between 
her voice and the spirit whisper. 

This was to me very significant, and strengthened 
me in my belief that the entire process, while in- 
explicable, was, after all, not the work of spirits. 

When the gas was lighted we found the cone had 
been placed on the table, a distance of forty inches 
from the utmost reach of the psychic's hands. Her 
feet were twenty-three inches from the nearest leg 
of the table. We carefully examined the tapes 
which were sewed to her sleeves. They were tied, 
and the doubled ends tacked precisely as described 
so many times, and to remove the tacks we were 
forced to use a hammer. It is useless to talk of a 
possible release of her arms during the phenomena 
of the cone. 

As I was about to leave the house that night, 
171 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Mrs. Smiley said: "I do not feel able to sit any 
more for the present, Mr. Garland. I feel myself 
growing weaker, and 'Mitchell' tells me I would 
better stop for the present. I feel that my power 
belongs to the world, and I want to do all I can to 
convince you of the truth of spiritualism, but I 
feel the strain very greatly." 

"I do not wonder at that," I responded, "and I 
cannot blame you for demanding a rest. No one 
could have endured more uncomplainingly. You 
have been a model subject, and we our deeply in 
your debt. I am sorry Miller was not with us to- 
night; he would have been convinced of your super- 
normal power at least. Have no fear of my report; 
for while I am not convinced of the spirit hypothe- 
sis, I have found you honest and patient and very 
brave. I thank you very sincerely for what you 
have done." 

And in this spirit we parted. 1 

1 Since these words were written I have seen the cone move. 
In the presence of another medium, with no one in the room 
but myself, I held the psychic's hands what time the horn 
circled over my head. It shone like a golden rod as it moved. 
I could see the gleam of light along its entire side. At last it 
came softly down and laid itself across my shoulder. In order 
to satisfy myself of its presence, I bent and touched it with 
my forehead. The touch seemed to disturb conditions, to 
break the current, for it dropped instantly to the floor. Twice 
it answered to my request in this manner until my doubts were 
satisfied. It seemed to move with the swiftness of a dragon- 
fly as silent and horizontal it hung in the air about my head. 



VII 



CAMERON'S Amateur Psychic Club, which 
had so nearly disintegrated by reason of the 
long series of barren sittings, was drawn together 
again by the news of my startling success at Fowler's 
house. Cameron at once decided that the mem- 
bers should hear my report, and I was notified 
to be ready to relate my experiences in full. 
We met, as before, at Cameron's table, and even 
before the soup-plates were removed the interroga- 
tion began, and by the time the company was in full 
possession of the facts the coffee and cigars had 
appeared. 

"Why didn't these wonders take place in our 
presence ?" asked Mrs. Quigg, who had returned to 
something like her original truculence of doubt. 
"Why should you and Brierly be so favored ?" 

"In this business everything comes to him who 
waits," I replied, a tinge of malice in my voice. 
"You obtained a few results, Miller a few more; 
but Fowler and I, for our pains, reaped the rich re- 
ward. By remaining long on the watch-tower we 
saw the armies pass. Harmony and patience are 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

essentials in the production of these marvels. With 
people yawning or shuffling about uneasily, results 
are necessarily unimportant." 

Miller continued firm in his agnosticism. "Al- 
though puzzling, I cannot grant so much as even 
one of the phenomena. Belief in the smallest of 
those manifestations at my house would be uproot- 
ing to all established theories of matter — not to men- 
tion time and space." 

"Were not the notions of Galileo and Darwin 
also subverting ?" asked Fowler. "Is there anything 
sacred in error ? If we are wrong in our theories 
about the universe, let's correct them. You do not 
stand out against wireless telegraphy or the Rontgen 
ray ?" 

Miller fired at this. "I'm not going to take in- 
struction from a tipping table or a flying hair-brush !" 
he fiercely retorted. 

"I'll take illumination from any source whatso- 
ever," responded Fowler. 

Here I interposed: "The only question that con- 
cerns me at this stage is: Does the table tip and the 
brush really fly ? No physical fact is trivial, for it 
stands related to mountains and the clouds." 

Fowler's eyes gleamed with contempt. "That's 
the way of you so-called scientists: you narrow the 
mighty fund of occult phenomena down to a floating 
feather. As a matter of fact, there is a sea of evi- 
dence accumulated by the investigations of men quite 

174 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

as scientific as Miller, testimony that is neither petty 
nor ignoble. It is because you and your associates 
are so trifling in methods that the tables and the 
chair play leading pans in your drama." 

"Good for you!" cheered Brierly. "You're quite 
right. When these materialistic investigators get 
done with trying to prove that independent slate- 
writing exists, they'll begin to give some attention 
to the fundamental truths of the messages which the 
slates set forth. Going after small things, they get 
small things. If Miller and his like went forth seek- 
ing the essentials of the faith, they would find them 
instead of being amazed with foolish tricks of hand." 

"Essentials such as what?" interrupted Harris, 
with snappy suddenness. 

"Such as — as — direct spirit communication, a 
knowledge of the astral, the reincarnation of souls, 
and — and — faith in the upward progression of the 
self," stammered Brierly, much disturbed. 

Here again I interposed a quieting word: "I con- 
fess that it begins to look as though the theosophist's 
theory of the astral (at which some of us have smiled) 
were in a fair way to be scientifically demonstrated. 
Since our last meeting I have been studying the 
bound volumes of The Annals of Psychic Science, 
and I have found them full of comfort. They 
sustain Mrs. Smiley at every point. To my mind, 
the most important event in the history of spiritism 
is the entrance of Eusapia Paladino into the clinical 

175 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

laboratory of Cesare Lombroso. Nothing since 
Crookes's experiments has had such value for the 
scientist." 

"We have heard of Lombroso, but who is Pala- 
dino ?" asked Mrs. Quigg. "Is she a psychic?" 

"She is the most renowned now living. Though 
only an illiterate peasant woman, she has been able 
for more than twenty years to baffle every scientist 
who has studied her. Her organism remains the 
most potent mystery on this earth." 

"Tell us about her! Who is she? Where does 
she live ?" 

"She was born at Minerva-murge, a mountain 
village near Bari, in Italy. According to Lom- 
broso's daughter, who has written a sketch of her, 
she is about fifty-three years of age. Her parents 
were peasants. She is quite uneducated, but is 
intelligent and rather good-looking. Her hands are 
pretty and her feet small — facts which are of value 
when studying her manifestations, as you will see 
later on. Her mother died while Eusapia was a 
babe, and her father ' passed over' when she was 
twelve, leaving her at large in the world 'like a wild 
animal/ as she herself says. A native family of her 
village took her to Naples, and her own story is that 
she was adopted soon after by some foreigners 'who 
wished to make me an educated and learned girl. 
They wanted me to take a bath every day and comb 
my hair every day,' she explains, with some humor. 

i 7 6 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"She didn't like the life nor the people, and she 
soon ran away back to her friends, the Apulians, and 
it was while she was in their house and at the precise 
moment when they were planning to put her in a 
convent that her occult powers were discovered. 
Some friends came in to spend the evening, and, in 
default of anything better to do, formed a circle to 
make a table tip. No sooner were they all seated, 
as she herself relates, than 'the table began to rise, 
the chairs to dance, the curtains to swell, and the 
glasses and bottles to walk about, till everybody was 
scared.' After testing every other person present, 
the host came to the conclusion that the medium was 
his little ward, Eusapia. This put an end to her 
going into a convent. She was proclaimed a me- 
dium, much to her disgust, and made to sit whole 
evenings at the table. 'I only did it,' she says, 'be- 
cause it was a way of recompensing my hosts, whose 
desire to keep me with them prevented their placing 
me in a convent. Finally I took up laundress work, 
thinking I might render myself independent and 
live as I liked without troubling about spiritualistic 
seances.'" 

"It is remarkable how many of these women 
psychics begin their career when they are ten or 
twelve years old," said Miller. "Mrs. Smiley was 
about that age, wasn't she ?" 

"Yes, and so was Mrs. Hartley, another psychic of 
my acquaintance. Mrs. Smiley complained of the 

*77 



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tedium of sitting. She tells me that her father 
kept her at it steadily, just as Eusapia was not per- 
mitted to escape her fate. One day an English- 
woman, wife of a certain Mr. Damiani, came to a 
seance, and was so impressed by what took place 
that she interested her husband in Eusapia's per- 
formances. Damiani then took up the young 
medium's development along the good old well- 
worn lines of American spiritualism, and she ac- 
quired all the tricks and all the 'patter.' Among 
other notions, she picked up the idea of an English 
'control' known as 'John King,' who declared him- 
sel a brother of 'Kate King,' of Crookes fame, and 
from that day Eusapia has been a professional 
'mejum.'" 

"What does she do?" asked Cameron. "What 
is her 'phase,' as you call it ?" 

"It must be confessed that most of her phases 
are of the poltergeist variety, but they are astounding. 
She produces the movement of mandolins, chairs, 
sofas, and small tables without contact (at least, 
such is the consensus of opinion of nearly a score of 
the best-known scientists of France and Italy), and 
also materializes hands and arms. There is vastly 
more than the poltergeist in her, that is evident; for 
she has conquered every critic with her miracles. 
Take, for instance, Lombroso's conversion, a fairly 
typical case. He was not only sceptical of spirit 
phenomena, but up to 1888 was openly contemptu- 

178 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ous of those who believed in them. However, in an 
article called 'The Influence of Civilization upon 
Genius,' published in 1888, he made this admission: 
1 Twenty or thirty years are enough to make the whole 
world admire a discovery which was treated as mad- 
ness at the moment when it was made. . . . Who knows 
whether my friends and I who laugh at spiritualism 
are not in error, just like hypnotized persons, or like 
lunatics; being in the dark as regards the truth, we 
laugh at those who are not in the same condition. 9 r 

"True enough," said Fowler. "The man who 
has made no study of these phenomena is like one 
color-blind: he has never seen a landscape." 

"It was this candid statement by Lombroso that 
moved Professor Chiaia, a friend of Eusapia's, to 
write the great alienist a letter which was in effect 
a challenge. After recounting a score or two of the 
wonderful doings of Paladino, whom he had studied 
carefully, he ended in this amusing fashion: 'Now 
you see my challenge. If you have not written the 
paragraph cited above simply for the fun of writing 
it, if you have the true love for science, if you are 
without prejudices — you, the first alienist of Italy — 
please take the field. When you can afford a week's 
vacation, indicate a place where we can meet. Four 
gentlemen will be our seconds: you will choose two, 
and I will bring the other two. . . . If the experiment 
does not succeed, you will consider me but as a man 
suffering from hallucination, who longs to be cured 

179 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

of his extravagances. ... If success crowns our 
efforts, your loyalty . . . will attest the reality of 
these mysterious phenomena and promise to inves- 
tigate their causes/ " 

"I hope Lombroso was man enough to accept the 
challenge," said Cameron. "Nothing could be 
fairer than the spook-man's offer." 

" He did not at once take up the gage. It was not, 
in fact, till February, 1891, that he was able to go 
to Naples to meet Eusapia, who had begun to in- 
terest some of his trusted scientific friends. He 
found the great psychic quite normal in appearance 
and rather attractive in manner. She was of 
medium size, with a broad and rather serious face 
lit with brilliant dark eyes. The most notable thing 
about her physical self was a depression in her skull 
caused by a fall in her infancy. This scar figures 
largely in nearly all the reports of her." 

"Why?" asked Harris. 

"Because they all agree that a singular sort of 
current of force, like a cool breeze, seems to come 
and go through this spot." 

Harris groaned, and Howard said: "Oh, rubbish!" 

"Rubbish or not, they all speak of this scar and its 
singular effects. At the time when Lombroso saw 
her first, Eusapia was just beginning to be known 
to scientists, but no one of special note had up to 
this time (1891) reported upon her. She was known 
as the wife of a small shop-keeper in Naples, and 

180 



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seemed a decent, matronly person, quite untouched 
by mysticism. Although not eager to sit for Lom- 
broso and his party of scientists, she finally con- 
sented. Among those who took part in these cele- 
brated experiments were Professor Tamburini, an 
eminent scientist; Dr. Bianchi, the superintendent 
of the Insane Asylum of Sales; and Dr. Penta, a 
young nephew of Lombroso, a resident of Naples. 
Lombroso had charge of the sittings, which were 
held in a room of his own choice and with the me- 
dium entirely under his control. He was astonished 
at the prompt response obtained. At the first sit- 
ting, while he and Professor Tamburini held the 
psychic's hands, a bell was carried tinkling through 
the air and a small table moved as if it were alive. 
Many other mysterious movements took place. 
Lombroso was very much disturbed by these inex- 
plicable phenomena, and could not rest till he sat 
again. At the second seance spectral hands de- 
veloped, profoundly mystifying every sitter, and 
Lombroso went away, promising to carry forward a 
study of spiritism. In a letter written the following 
June he manfully said: 'I am filled with confusion, 
and regret that I combated with so much persistence 
the possibilities of the facts called spiritualistic. I 
say facts, for I am opposed to the theory. 9 ,: 

"Did Lombroso say that ?" asked Harris. 

"He wrote it, which is still more to the point, and 
it was his acceptance of the main facts of Paladino's 

j8i 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

mediumship that led other groups of scientists to take 
up her case. Professor Schiaparelli, Director of the 
Observatory at Milan; Gerosa, Professor of Physics; 
Ermacora, Doctor of Natural Philosophy; Aksakof, 
Councilor of State to the Emperor of Russia; and 
Charles du Prel, Doctor of Philosophy in Munich, 
were in the next group, which met at Milan with in- 
tent to settle the claims of this bold charlatan. 

"The sittings took place in the apartment of 
Monsieur Finzi at Milan, and were more rigid and 
searching than any Paladino had ever passed 
through, but she was again triumphant. She be- 
wildered them all. Lombroso himself was present 
during some of the sittings. The results of the 
series of experiments were very notable and very 
far-reaching. For the first time, so far as I know, a 
table was photographed while floating in the air — " 

"No!" shouted Howard. 

"Yes; and certain other telekinetic happenings 
were proved, to the stupefaction of most of those in 
the group. One special experiment, the success of 
which confounded the shrewdest, was the attempt 
to secure on a smoke-blackened paper the print of 
one of the spectral hands." 

"Did it succeed?" 

"Yes. The impression was made while Pala- 
dino's hands were imprisoned beyond all question, 
and, what was most singular of all, the hand that 
made the print smudged the wrists of one of the ex- 

182 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

perimenters, and yet not a particle of black appeared 
on the fingers of the psychic." 

"That ought to have convinced them of her 
honesty," remarked Fowler, with a note of amuse- 
ment in his voice, "but it didn't; these scientific folk 
are so difficult." 

"No," I replied, "it didn't convince them, but it 
jarred them not a little. In their report they ad- 
mitted this much. They said, 'We do not believe 
we have the right to explain these things by the aid 
of insulting assumptions.' (By this they meant to 
acquit the psychic of fraud.) 'We think, on the 
contrary, that these experiments have to do with 
phenomena of an unknown nature, and we confess 
that we do not know what the conditions are that are 
required to produce them.'" 

"That seems to me like a very mild statement, 
but I suppose they considered it epoch-making," 
remarked Fowler. 

"From this time forward learned men in Russia, 
France, and Italy successively sought Paladino out 
and tried to expose her to the world. Professor 
Wagner, of the Department of Zoology at the Uni- 
versity of St. Petersburg, made a study of her in 
1893, and found her powers real. A year later M. 
Siemeradski, correspondent of the Institute, ex- 
perimented with her in Rome, obtaining, among 
other miracles, the plucking of the strings of a closed 
piano under strictly test conditions." 

183 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"You had that experience, did you not?" asked 
Mrs. Cameron. 

"Yes, I've had that." 

"How do you account for a thing of that sort ?" 

"I don't account for it — or if I did give my theory, 
you would laugh at me. Wait till I tell you what 
these Italians are doing. Among the most eminent 
and persuasive of all Eusapia's investigators was 
Professor Charles Richet, the French physiologist 
and author. Eusapia came to revere and trust him, 
and gave him many sittings. He, too, was bowled 
over. He tells the story of his conversion very 
charmingly. 'In my servile respect for classic tra- 
dition,' he writes, 'I laughed at Crookes and his 
experiments; but it must be remembered in my 
excuse that as a professional physiologist I moved 
habitually along a road quite other than mystical.' 
His attention, he goes on to say, was first drawn 
to spiritist phenomena by the word of a friend who 
had discovered a power that caused a table to 
move intelligently. He was trying to explain this 
and one or two other little things like telepathy and 
prophetic vision by the word 'somnambulism,' when 
his friend Aksakof, a great psychical expert, re- 
proached him for not interesting himself more 
keenly in experiments with mediums. 'Well,' said 
Richet, 'if I were sure that a single true medium 
existed, I would willingly go to the ends of the 
world to meet him.' " 

184 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"That's the spirit !" exclaimed Fowler. "That 
is the way the scientist should feel. What then ? 
Aksakof told him all he needed to do was to go 
round the corner, didn't he ?" 

"Not exactly. Two years later Aksakof wrote to 
him: 'You needn't come to the end of the world; 
Milan will do.' So Richet went to Milan, and 
took part in those very celebrated seances with 
Eusapia. 'When I left Milan,' Richet says, 'I was 
convinced that all was true; but no sooner was I 
back in my accustomed channels of work than my 
doubts returned. I persuaded myself that all had 
been fraud or illusion.'" 

Here Harris interrupted: "Miller can testify to 
this inability to retain a conviction. He, too, has 
slumped into doubt. How about it, Miller ?" 

"I never professed to believe," declared Miller. 

"You were pretty well convinced that night in 
your study, weren't you ?" I asked. 

"I was puzzled," he replied, guardedly. 

There was a general smile of amusement at his 
manifest evasion, and I resumed: "Richet went to 
Rome, and together with Schrenk-Notzing, the 
philosophic expert, and Siemeradski, the corre- 
spondent of the French Institute, made other and 
still more convincing experiments, and yet doubt 
persisted ! ' I was not yet satisfied,' he says, further. 
'/ invited Eusapia to my house for three months. 
Alone with her and Ochorowicz, a man of penetrating 
13 185 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

perspicuity, I renewed my experiments in the best 
possible conditions of solitude and quiet reflection. 
We thus acquired a positive proof of the reality of the 
facts announced at Milan.' ' 

"By George, that's going it strong!" said young 
Howard. " You've got to believe that a man like 
Richet has seen something after three months' ex- 
periment in his own house." 

Miller faced them all stubbornly: "And yet even 
Richet may have been deceived." 

"Are you the only one competent to study these 
facts ?" asked Brierly, hotly. "The egotism of you 
professional physicists is a kind of insanity. The 
moment a man like Richet or Lombroso admits a 
knowledge of one of these occult facts, you who have 
no experience in the same phenomena jump on him 
like so many wolves. Such bigotry is unworthy 
a scientist." 

"Would you have us accept the word of any 
one man when that word contradicts the experience 
of all mankind ?" asked Miller. 

"Listen to what Richet says in confession of his 
perplexity," I called out, soothingly. "He writes: 
'It took me twenty years to arrive at my present con- 
viction — nay! to make one last confession. / am 
not yet absolutely and irremediably convinced. In 
spite of the astounding phenomena which I have 
witnessed during my sixty experiments with Eusapia, 
I have still a trace of doubt. Certainty does not 

186 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

follow on demonstration ; it follows on habit' So 
don't blame Miller or myself for inability to believe 
in these theories, for our minds are the kind that 
accept the mystical with sore struggle." 

"Go on with Eusapia's career," said Harris. "I 
am interested in her. I want the story of the in- 
vestigations." 

"Her story broadens," I resumed. "Her fame 
spread throughout Europe, and squad after squad 
of militant scientists grappled with her, each one 
perfectly sure that he was the one to unmask her to 
the world. She was called before kings and em- 
perors, and everywhere she triumphed — save in 
Cambridge, where she made a partial failure; but 
she redeemed herself later with both Lodge and 
Myers, so that it remains true to say that she has 
gone surely from one success to another and greater 
triumph." 

"But there have been other such careers — Slade's 
and Home's, for instance — which ended in dis- 
aster." 

"True, but nothing like her courage has ever been 
known. The crowning wonder of her career came 
when she consented to enter the special laboratories 
of the universities of Genoa and Naples. It is in 
the writings of Morselli, Professor of Psychology at 
Genoa, and in the reports of Bottazzi, head of the 
Department of Physics at Naples, that scepticism, 
such as my own, is met and conquered. I defy 

i8 7 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Miller or any man of open mind to read the detailed 
story of these marvellous experiments and deny the 
existence of the basic phenomena produced by 
Eusapia Paladino." 

"You speak with warmth," said Harris. 

"I do. I am at this moment fresh from a reading 
of the reports of Bottazzi's up-to-date experiments, 
and I am compelled to grant that he has not only 
sustained Crookes at every point, but has gone be- 
yond him in his ingenuity of test and thoroughness 
of control. He adds the touch of certainty that we 
all needed to complete our own experience. He 
has given me courage to say what I believe Mrs. 
Smiley did for us." 

"Won't you tell us all about it?" pleaded Mrs. 
Cameron. "Please do." 

"It is too long and complicated. You must read 
it for yourself. It is too incredible to be told." 

"Never mind, Garland; we'll take it as part of 
your fiction. Go ahead." 

As I looked about me, I could detect in the faces 
of some of my friends an expression of apprehension. 
The coffee had grown cold. Our ice-cream had 
melted with neglect. Every eye was fixed upon me. 
It was plain that Harris and Miller considered me 
"on the high-road to spiritualism." Quite willing 
to gratify their wish to be startled, I proceeded : 

"You will find the latest word on all these mat- 
ters in a small but valuable review, published simul- 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

taneously in London and in Paris, called The An- 
nals of Psychic Science. It is edited by Cesar de 
Vesme in France, and by Laura I. Finch in Eng- 
land, and is a mine of reliable psychic science. 
Its directors are Dr. Dariex and Professor Charles 
Richet. Its 'committee' is made up of Sir William 
Crookes, Camille Flammarion, Professor Lombroso, 
Marcel Mangin, Dr. Joseph Maxwell, Professor 
Enrico Morselli, of Genoa; Dr. Julien Ochorowicz, 
head of the General Psychologic Institute of Paris; 
Professor Porro, the astronomer; Colonel Albert de 
Rochas, author of The Externalization of Motivity, 
and others of like character." 

"We don't want the review, we want your ac- 
count," said Harris. "Don't spare us. Give us 
detail — lots of it." 

"Thank you; you shall have it hot-shot, but I'll 
have to generalize the story for you. The most de- 
cisive of all the tests have been made during the last 
eighteen months, and the final and most convincing 
of all within the year, under the direction of Lom- 
broso, Morselli, and Bottazzi. It is safe to say that 
with these experiments (and the reports which ac- 
company them) a new era has dawned in biology. 
The facts of mediumship are in process of being 
scientifically observed by a score of the best-quali- 
fied men in Europe, and at last we are about to study 
mediumship apart from any question of religious 



tenets." 



189 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Fowler took issue with me here: "It is absurd 
to say that no one but these physicists has ever 
properly studied spiritualistic phenomena; spiritists 
themselves have put the screws on quite as effec- 
tively as ever Crookes or Richet has done. Some 
of the best investigators ever known have been 
spiritists." 

"Even if that were true, their testimony would 
lack the convincing power that flames from Mor- 
selli's book or Bottazzi's report. The essential 
weakness of the spiritist's testimony lies in the fact 
that for the most part he assumes that the facts of 
mediumship are somehow, and necessarily, in op- 
position to somebody's religion. He finds it sus- 
tained (or opposed) by the Bible, or he fancies it 
mixed with deviltry or the black art. He trembles 
for fear it will affect the scheme of redemption or 
assist some theosophical system. Whereas, a man 
like Bottazzi is engaged merely with the facts; 
he lets the inferences fall where they may. He is 
not concerned with whether Eusapia's manifesta- 
tions oppose Christian theology or not; he wants 
the phenomena. He is alert to note their effect 
on biologic science, but he does not shrink from 
any report of them. So far as I am concerned, my 
lot is cast with these men who put the clamps 
on the fact and wait for larger knowledge before 
constructing a system of religion on the half- 
discovered." 

190 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I'm with you there," said Miller. "And if our 
university officials took the same view, we Americans 
would hold higher rank in the world's thought." 

u Bottazzi himself says, with reference to his ex- 
periments: 'In spite of all the hundreds of those 
who have observed Eusapia, it still remained true 
to say that hitherto she had been free to throw 
things about as she pleased." But all this took a 
sharp turn when she came into Bottazzi's labora- 
tory." 

"Just who is Bottazzi ?" Harris asked. 

"He's the head of the Physiological Institute of 
the University of Naples; of his age and general 
character I am not precisely informed, but he writes 
delightfully of his experiments. Morselli, who pre- 
ceded him in his study of Eusapia, is the Profess- 
or of Psychology in the University of Genoa. Foa 
and Herlitzka are of the same university. With- 
in the last two years Eusapia has also been rigor- 
ously studied in Lombroso's clinical laboratory at 
Turin. All honor to her for breaking away from 
the traditions of mediumship!" 

Mrs. Quigg caught me up on this: "What do 
you mean by 'traditions of mediumship' ?" 

"I mean that for the most part investigators have 
nearly always been kept at arm's-length by the fiction 
that the 'guide' should control everything, that the 
seance is a religious rite, that the medium must not 
be touched nor exposed to the light, and so on, till 

191 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the scientist was reduced to the feeble rank of an 
on-looker in the dark, so that no real test was pos- 
sible. These Italians did not grant any of these 
traditions. They were scientists, not devotees at a 
new shrine. ,, 

"However, I am ready to grant that some of the 
good old rules were justified. As you have seen in 
my own experiments, I have proceeded cautiously, 
for if you suppose mediumship to be a psycho- 
dynamic adjustment of the organisms in the circle 
— a subtle physical relationship — there is all the 
more reason to be careful. I did not find it neces- 
sary to mistreat Mrs. Smiley in order to test her 
powers. But Eusapia has set a new pace for me- 
diums. She has gone into the lion's den alone and 
unarmed — not once, but a hundred times. She en- 
tered Lombroso's study, a room previously unex- 
plored by her, and there placed herself before a 
cabinet that she was not permitted to examine — a 
cabinet filled with machines for dividing the true 
from the false. In Morselli's presence she sub- 
mitted to tests the like of which not even Crookes 
was permitted to apply, and all sacred rules and 
regulations, all ideas of religion or questions of 
morality, vanished when she entered the cold, clear 
air of Bottazzi's physiological laboratory." 

"This begins to sound like the grapple of a cuttle- 
fish and a mermaid. Was the woman crushed ?" 

"No; she more than sustained her great reputa- 

IQ2 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

tion, She conquered the remorseless scientist and 
performed the impossible." 

I had the strained attention of my audience now. 
Time was forgotten, and cries of "Tell us!" "Tell 
us all!" arose. 

"It is an exciting story, an incredible story — " 

"So much the better!" exclaimed Miss Brush. 

"I am full of enthusiasm for Bottazzi," I resumed, 
"His was the kind of investigation I should like to 
put through myself. It appeals to me as no spirit- 
ualistic performance has ever done. In a sense the 
facts he has demonstrated make all material tests 
inoperative. Matter is all we have to cling to when 
it comes to physical tests. A nail driven down 
through the sleeve of the medium's dress seems to 
increase our control of her, and a metronome or a 
Morse telegraphic sounder does add value to our 
testimony, and yet Zollner seems nearer right than 
Miller: matter seems only a condition of force, and 
subject to change at the will of the psychic. 

"Up to the beginning of last year Bottazzi con- 
fesses that he had read little or nothing on the sub- 
ject, and, like our friend Miller here, considered it 
beneath the dignity of a scientist to be present at 
spiritualist circles. It is highly instructive to note 
that Paladino, the most renowned medium of her 
time, was in Naples at his very door; but that doesn't 
matter — a scientist is blind to what he does not wish 
to see. In this case Bottazzi's eyes were opened by 

m 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

a young friend, Professor Charles Foa, of Turin, who 
sent him an account of what he and Dr. Herlitzka 
had witnessed in Eusapia's presence. " 

"They really seem to be taking the phenomena 
seriously over there," said Harris. 

"These particular sittings at Turin made a great 
sensation in Italy. They were under the direction 
of Drs. Herlitzka, Foa, and Aggazzotti, assistants to 
Professor Mosso, of the University of Turin. Dr. 
Pio Foa, Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, was also 
present during one seance. The conditions were all 
of the experimenters' own contriving. They were 
young men and had been companion workers in 
science for many years, and were accustomed to 
laboratory work. They all came to this experiment 
perfectly sure that no mediumistic phenomena could 
endure the light of science. At the end of their three 
sittings they manfully said: 'Noiv that we are per- 
suaded of the authenticity of the phenomena, we feel 
it our duty to state the fact publicly in our turn, and 
to proclaim that the few pioneers in this branch of 
biology (destined to become one of the most im- 
portant) generally saw and observed correctly. . . . 
We hope that our words may serve to stimulate 
some of these colleagues to study personally and 
attentively this group of interesting and ob- 
scure phenomena/ You will note they relate 
their tests, not to theology, but to unexplored bi- 
ology." 

194 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I like the ring of that declaration of theirs," 
said Harris. "Go on! Come to Hecuba!" 

"Bottazzi was enormously impressed by this ac- 
count, which detailed coldly, critically, the most 
amazing experiments. With ingenuity that would 
have seemed satanic to Paladino (had she known of 
it), Foa and Aggazzotti had laid their pipes and pro- 
vided for every trick. They were confident that 
nothing genuine could occur, but, as a matter of 
record, weird performances began at once. Bells 
were rung, tables shifted, columns of mercury lifted, 
mandolins played, and small objects were transport- 
ed quite in the same fashion as the books were 
handled during our own sittings at your house, 
Miller — in fact, the doings were much the same in 
character. A small stand was broken to pieces 
under the very eyes of the learned doctors, and 
hands hit and teeth bit those whom the medium did 
not like. Each of the machines for registering 
movement, though utterly out of reach of Paladino, 
was operated, and some of these movements were 
systematically recorded. 

"It was this care, these scrupulous and cold- 
blooded tests, that so profoundly affected Bottazzi. 
These men were his friends. He knew their level- 
headed and remorseless accuracy. The fact that 
they considered the whole investigation biologic in 
character, and that the results of their experiments 
strengthened their theory of the physiological de- 

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THE SHADOW WORLD 

terminism of the phenomena, added to his eagerness 
to try for himself." 

"Wait a moment," said Cameron. "What do 
you mean by ' physiological determinism' ?" 

"He means that the phenomena began and end- 
ed in the psychic's organism." 

"Do you intend to convey that they considered 
the medium dishonest ?" 

"Oh no. Merely that they did not relate the 
phenomena to the intervention of the spirits of the 
dead." 

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Cameron. 

"Merely!" exclaimed Harris. "' Merely' is good 
in that case." 

' After reading these articles with avidity,' 
Bottazzi's report begins: 'Professor Galeotti, my 
associate, and I looked at each other astounded, 
and the same thoughts in the same words came 
simultaneously to our lips: "We, too, must see, 
must touch with our hands — and at once — here in 
this laboratory where experiments of the phenomena 
of life are daily carried on, with the impartiality of 
men whose object is the discovery of scientific truth, 
here in this quiet place where sealed doors will be 
superfluous. Everything must be registered. Will 
the medium be able to impress a photographic plate ? 
Will she be able to illuminate a screen treated with 
platino-cyanide of barium ? Will she be able to 
discharge a gold-leaf electroscope without touching 

196 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

it ?" And so we travelled on the wings of imagina- 
tion, always having before us the plummet of the 
strictest scientific methods.' " 

"Now you're getting into my horizon," said 
Miller. "That is the way I wished to proceed in 
Mrs. Smiley's case. Did Bottazzi get these things 
done ?" 

"You're as impatient as Miss Brush," I replied, 
highly amused at his eagerness. "First you must 
catch your medium. Bottazzi succeeded at last in 
getting Paladino's consent, but only through the 
good offices of Professor Richet, whom she deeply 
loves and reverences. Submissively she entered 
into this most crucial series of tests. She was no 
longer afraid of any scientist, but it was not precisely 
a joy to her. Bottazzi invited his friend Galeotti, 
Professor of General Pathology in the University of 
Naples; Dr. de Amicis, Professor of Dermatology; 
Dr. Oscar Scarpa, Professor of Electro-chemistry 
at the Polytechnic High School of Naples; Luigi 
Lombardi, Professor of Electro-technology at the 
same school; and Dr. Pansini, Professor Extraor- 
dinary of Medical Semiotics; and these gentlemen 
certainly made up a formidable platoon of in- 
vestigation. The room in which the experiments 
took place was an isolated one, connected with 
the laboratory of experimental physiology, and be- 
longed to that part of the university set aside for 
Bottazzi's exclusive use. Nothing could have been 

197 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

further from the ordinary stuffy back parlor of the 
'materializing medium.' No women were present, 
and no outsider; as you see, conditions were as near- 
ly perfect as the ingenuity of Bottazzi and his assist- 
ants could make them." 

The members present nestled into their chairs 
with looks of satisfaction, and Mrs. Cameron said : 
"Don't leave anything out. Tell it all." 

"It is hardly necessary to say that every pre- 
caution was taken. Photographs of the cabinet 
were made before the sittings and afterward, in 
order that all displacements might be recorded. 
Provision was made for registering the action of 
'John King's' spectral hands. Some of these de- 
vices were concealed in an adjoining room and 
watched by other attendants. One little touch 
early in Bottazzi's account impressed me deeply. 
A little electric motor was used to furnish power 
for the lamps and other apparatus, and Bottazzi, in 
speaking of it, says: 'At the moment when the phe- 
nomena to be registered began to manifest, the 
circuit was closed, and suddenly in the complete si- 
lence of the night the feeble murmur of the motor was 
heard.' I thrill to the action of that faithful little 
material watch-dog. Ghosts and hobgoblins could 
not silence or affright it. After all, matter is both 
persistent and bold." 

"But not sovereign," defiantly called out Brierly; 
"the psychic dominates it." 

1 08 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"We shall see. Bottazzi declares in italics that 
Paladino neither put her hand into the cabinet nor 
knew the contents of it. ( Rarely has she been sur- 
rounded by such an assembly of unprejudiced minds, 
by such strict and attentive intellects/ he declares. 
And when you consider the absence of women, the 
mystery of the machinery, together with the stern 
character of the sitters, the medium's courage be- 
comes marvellous. Perfect honesty alone can sus- 
tain a medium in such an ordeal. I am ready to 
agree that a new era began for spiritism when 
Eusapia entered that room, April 17, 1907." 

"Poor Paladino!" sighed Mrs. Cameron. "I 
tremble for her." 

"Bottazzi grimly says: 'We began by restrain- 
ing her inexhaustible mediumistic activity. We 
obliged her to do things she x had never done before. 
We limited the field of her manifestations. ... I was 
convinced that it was much easier for her to drag 
out of the cabinet a heavy table than to press an 
electric knob or displace the rod of a metronome.' 
And this theory he set himself to prove. It was 
beautiful to see the way he went about it." 

Howard was also impressed. "I see Eusapia's 
finish. She won't do a thing. The influences will 
criss-cross. Bottazzi's cabinet is her Waterloo." 

"Observe that Bottazzi was not perverse. He 
met the psychic half-way by forming the usual chain 
about the table, placing Eusapia before the curtains 

199 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

of the little cabinet, which was a recess in the wall. 
Bottazzi himself and his assistants had constructed 
this cabinet and placed everything in position before 
Eusapia entered the room at all, and throughout 
the sitting she was controlled by at least two of the 
investigators so that she could not so much as put 
a hand inside the curtains. She was very uneasy, 
as though finding the conditions hard. Neverthe- 
less, even at this first sitting, everything movable in 
the cabinet was thrown about. The table was vio- 
lently shaken and the metronome set going. Bottazzi 
ends his first report by saying: 'The seance yield- 
ed very small results, but this is always the case at 
first seances. Nevertheless, how many "knowing 
people and savans" have formed a judgment on 
phenomena after seances such as this one? ,,; 

" That's a slant at you, Miller," remarked Harris. 

"Yes," I agreed, "it's a slant at all commissions 
and committees who think they can jump in and 
settle this spiritistic controversy in the course of 
half an hour. Bottazzi, like Lombroso and Richet, 
was aware that he had entered upon a long road. 
He knew that a tired or worried medium was help- 
less. He called the same circle together for the 
20th, willing to try patiently for developments. 
All came but Lombardi, whose place was taken by 
M. Jona, an engineer. The second sitting was a 
wonder. Warned by his first experience, Bottazzi 
nailed or screwed every movable thing fast to the 

200 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

walls of the cabinet. He was resolute to force 
'John/ the supposed 'guide,' to touch the electric 
button and press the ball of India-rubber that con- 
nected with a mercury manometer. He intend- 
ed to teach the spirit hand to register its actions 
on a revolving cylinder of smoked tin. He wanted 
graven records, so that no wiseacre like Harris, 
here, could say: ' Oh, the thing never moved. You 
were all hypnotized!' In effect, he said: 'They tell 
us that a cold wind blows from the cabinet. I will 
put a self-registering thermometer in the cabinet and 
see. They say tables weighing forty pounds have 
been lifted. All I ask is that the bulb of a self-regis- 
tering manometer be pressed. They say a Morse 
telegraphic key has been sounded by spirit hands. 
Very well; I will arrange a connection so that every 
pressure of the key will be registered on a sheet 
of smoked paper, so that the fact of the sound 
of the key shall be recorded by an infallible in- 
strument.' " 

"Did he get the records ?" asked Harris. 

"Wait and see!" commanded Cameron. 

"These indicate the methods which Bottazzi and 
his assistants brought to bear on the medium. 
No more worship here, no awe, no hesitation, no 
superstition. Among other things, he put into the 
cabinet a small table weighing about fifteen pounds, 
and on top of it arranged a hair-brush, a hen's 
feather, a bottle full of water, and a very thick glass. 
z * 201 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

These articles and the table were the only objects 
that could be moved. His aim was to limit the spirit 
hands to a few movables — to see whether they could 
not be taught to do what was required of them. 
Well, that httle table came out of the cabinet of its 
own accord in a light that made it perfectly visible, at 
the precise time when three of the inexorable pro- 
fessors were rigidly clasping the psychic. But that 
is not the most remarkable thing. The psychic's 
feet were held by the engineer, and he observed that 
at the exact moment when Paladino pushed against 
his knee the table moved. 'Each advance of the 
table corresponded/ says Bottazzi, 'with the most 
perfect synchronism, to the push of Eusapia's legs 
against Jona's knees'; in other words, she really 
executed movements identical with those that she 
would have made had she been pushing the table 
out of the cabinet with her visible limbs." 

As I paused for effect, Fowler said: "You say 
that as if you considered it very significant." 

"I do. In my judgment, it is the most valuable 
fact developed by these most searching experiments. 
Flammarion noted this same significant relation be- 
tween the movements of the psychic and the spirit 
hands, and so did Maxwell. Maxwell proved it by 
experiments on his own person, and now Bottazzi is 
proving it in a larger way. 'A few moments later,' 
he says, 'a glass was flung from the cabinet by these 
invisible agencies, and this fling coincided exactly 

202 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

with a kick which Paladino gave to Jona, as if the 
same will governed both movements. " : 

Miller was thinking very hard. "That certainly 
is very strange," he said, "but I observed nothing of 
it in Mrs. Smiley' s case; on the contrary, it seemed 
to me that our strongest manifestations came when 
she was perfectly still/' 

"Hasten!" urged Fowler. "Come to the phan- 
toms. I perceive his theory, but it will all be upset 
later by the materialized forms." 

"On the contrary, Bottazzi declares the phan- 
toms also conformed to this same law. He was de- 
termined upon educating 'John King,' and kept 
insisting that the invisible hands press the rubber 
ball, or lower the registry balance, or set the me- 
tronome going, and Eusapia repeatedly moaned: '/ 
cant find,' 'I cant see, 9 or '/ don't know how.' Once 
she complained that the objects were too far off — 
that she could not reach them! — all of which sustained 
Bottazzi in his belief that these activities were abso- 
lutely under her psychic control, just as the synchro- 
nism of movements convinced him that she was 'the 
physiologic factor in the case.' All of this is very 
exciting to me, for I have had the same feeling with re- 
gard to the several mediums whose activities I have 
closely studied. Bottazzi says, with regard to the 
results of the first two sittings: 'These first seances 
show that Eusapia needed to learn how to make 
these movements with which her invisible hands 

203 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

were unfamiliar, just as she would have had to 
learn to make them with her visible hands. You 
will all observe that he did not permit awe or 
superstitious reverence for the medium or her 
phantoms to balk his experiments/ A convinced 
spiritist who attended one of the seances was scan- 
dalized by the tone and character of the tests. 
These professors were continually bobbing up to 
see what was going on, disturbing conditions, stir- 
ring things up as with a spoon to see how it was all 
going on. They broke the chain of hands when- 
ever they wanted to see what ' the spirits ' were doing. 
In other words, these scientists were students, not 
devotees. They were experimenting, not commun- 
ing with the dead." 

"Others have tried that," said Fowler. "But 
they succeeded in preventing any manifestations 
whatsoever." 

"It didn't work out so in this instance. Bottazzi 
says that during the first seance Professor Scarpa 
irritated Eusapia greatly by his impertinent cu- 
riosity, but Bottazzi himself quieted her by saying: 
'You see, dear Eusapia, we are not here only to 
admire the marvellous phenomena you are able to 
produce, but also, and chiefly, to observe and 
verify and criticise. We do not doubt you or sus- 
pect any fraud, but we want to see clearly, and to 
follow the development of the phenomena. That 
is why M. Scarpa surveys the cabinet between the 

204 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

curtains, illuminating it occasionally with an elec- 
tric pocket- lamp. Which do you prefer, passive 
admiration, of which you must have had more than 
enough already, or the calm affirmation of physicists 
who are accustomed to extort from Nature secrets 
which she hides from physical eyes ? l In this way,' 
adds the master, 'Eusapia's irritation was softened; 
she rebelled no further, but yielded with docility 
to the sharp, attentive scrutiny of the observer, 
who finally declared himself beaten, not having 
been able to discover at any point a shadow of 
fraud.'" 

"Hurrah for Eusapia!" shouted Howard. "She 
must be a wonder!" 

"A spiritist would say that her guides were in- 
sisting on the most rigid test. The account goes 
on to say that the psychic, when entranced, was not 
satisfied with the grasp of two of the spies; she fre- 
quently asked, in a faint voice, for a third or even 
a fourth hand in order that there could be no ques- 
tion of her freedom from connection with the phe- 
nomena. As in the case of our own psychic, Mrs. 
Smiley co-operated to the utmost with us. She 
never refused to permit any test." 

Miller here remarked: "I can't but think that 
our control of Mrs. Smiley was complete, and yet 
I could not (under the conditions) assert that she 
was not the author of the acts we witnessed in my 
library. I cannot bring myself to entertain, even 

205 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

for an instant, the spirit hypothesis, but in Bottaz- 
zi's theory I glimpse an alternative." 

"Yes, Bottazzi plainly hints at his conclusions by 
saying: 'The invisible limbs of the psychic explored 
the cabinet/ He repeats, 'I am convinced that 
these " mediumistic limbs" are capable of being 
taught unfamiliar duties, like pressing an electric 
button or squeezing a rubber ball,' and this he pro- 
ceeded patiently to exemplify. At the third sitting 
Madame Bottazzi was present (Lombardi and Jona 
being absent), and the 'force' was much greater 
and more active than before, probably because of the 
psychic's growing confidence. A small table float- 
ed in the air ( while we watched it in amazement? 
he says. One levitation lasted long enough to 
count fifty. 'We all had time to observe that the 
piece of furniture was quite isolated,' he adds. 
Furthermore, a big black hand came from the cur- 
tain and touched Madame Bottazzi on the cheek, 
and frightened her from her place beside the me- 
dium." 

"I can understand that," said Mrs. Cameron. 
"Think of being touched by even one's own dead!" 

"Professor de Amicis was not only touched on 
the arm but forcibly pulled, as if by an invisible 
hand. The curtain of the cabinet then enveloped 
him as if to embrace him, and he felt the contact 
of another face against his, and a mouth kissing 
him—" 

206 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

The women cried out at the thought, but I hurried 
on to make Bottazzi's point: " 'At the same time 
Ens apt as lips moved as if to kiss, and she made the 
sound of kissing, which we all distinctly heard.' 
Here again, you see, is that astounding synchronism 
which Maxwell and Morselli observed between the 
movement of objects and the contraction of the 
muscles in the medium's arms and legs. Bottazzi 
pauses to generalize: 'Whatever may be the me- 
diumistic phenomena produced, there is almost al- 
ways at the same time movement of one or several 
parts of the medium's body.'" 

"What does he mean? Does he mean that 
Eusapia performed all these movements with her 
'astral hands'?" asked Mrs. Quigg. 

"That is precisely his inference. 'Mysterious 
hands,' Bottazzi calls them." 

"But how will he account for the difference in 
size between Eusapia's hands and the large black 
hand that she saw and felt ?" asked Fowler. 

"Bottazzi himself remarks upon this discrepancy. 
'To whom does this hand belong?' he asked — 'this 
hand, a half a yard away from the medium's head, 
seen while her visible hands are rigorously controlled 
by her two neighbors ? Is it the hand of a mon- 
strous long arm which liberates itself from the 
medium's body, then dissolves, to afterward "ma- 
terialize" afresh ? Is it something analogous to the 
pteropod of an amoeba, which projects itself from 

207 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the body, then retreats into it only to reappear in 
another place ? Mystery!' But this is not the most 
grewsome sight; one of the professors, stealing a 
glance behind the medium, saw remnants of legs 
and arms lying about the cabinet." 

"Horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. "I'd 
rather believe in spirits. What does he mean to 
infer?" 

"Apparently he would have us believe that ma- 
terialization is a process due to the medium— or 
at least dependent on her will — and that these par- 
tially completed forms represent fragmentary im- 
pulses. But I'm not so much concerned just now 
with that as with the course of schooling through 
which he drove Eusapia. He stuck to his plan. He 
put into his cabinet each time certain sounders, 
markers, and lamps, which could be moved, ticked, 
or lighted only by hands in the cabinet, and he 
kept the same rigid control of his medium outside 
the cabinet. For the most part she was in the 
light. By means of a series of lamps the seance- 
room could be lighted dimly or brightly at a touch, 
and, while many of the phenomena in the cabinet 
were being performed by 'John,' Eusapia's hands 
could be plainly seen in the grasp of her inquisitors. 
After seeing a mandolin move and play of itself, 
after having the metronome set in motion, stopped, 
and set going again, after having the registrations he 
most desired, Bottazzi concludes his third sitting by 

208 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

saying: 'An invisible hand or foot must therefore 
have forced down the disk r must have leaned on the 
membrane of the receiving-drum of my apparatus, 
because I assured myself next day that to obtain 
the highest lines registered the disk had to be 
pressed to the extreme point. This was no ordi- 
nary case of pushing or pulling. The mysterious 
hand had to push the disk, and push it in a cer- 
tain way. In short, the "spirit hand" was hecoming 
educated to its task.'" 

Miller asked: "Did these performances take 
place, as in the case of Mrs. Smiley, within the reach 
of her ordinary limbs ?" 

"Yes, many of them took place within a yard of 
her head; but some of them, and the most mar- 
vellous of them, not merely took place out of her 
reach, but under conditions of unexampled rigor. 
'Eusapia's mediumistic limbs penetrated into the 
cabinet,' says Bottazzi. 'I begged my friends not 
to distract the medium's attention by requests for 
touches, apparitions, etc., but to concentrate their 
desires and their wills on the things I asked for. . . .' 
What he wanted her to do was very simple, but con- 
clusive. He wished 'the spirit hand' to press an 
electric button and light a red lamp within the cabi- 
net. The coil and the switch had been dragged 
out of the cabinet and thrown on the table. Bottazzi 
begged them all not to touch it. No one but Scarpa, 
Galeotti, and Bottazzi knew what it was for. 'At 

209 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

a certain moment Eusapia took hold of the first 
finger of my right hand and squeezed it with her 
fingers. A ray of light from the interior of the 
cabinet lit up the room' — she had pressed the con- 
tact-breaker with her invisible fingers at the precise 
time when she had squeezed with her visible hand 
the forefinger of Bottazzi. She repeatedly did this. 
'If one of us, be it observed, had lit the lamp, she 
would have screamed with pain and indignation." 

"Was this the climax of his series? Is this all 
he is willing to affirm ?" queried Harris, with ironic 
inflection. 

"Oh no, indeed. The greatest is yet to come. 
At the fourth sitting a new person, Professor Car- 
darelli, was introduced, and this new sitter dis- 
turbed conditions. Nevertheless, the inexplicable 
took place. Small twirling violet flames were seen 
to drift across the cabinet curtains, and hands and 
closed fists appeared over Paladino's head. These 
have been photographed, by-the-wav. Some of them 
were of ordinary size, and others at least three 
times larger than the psychic's hand and fist. These 
flames interest me very much, for I have seen them 
on several occasions, but could not believe in them, 
even though Crookes spoke of handling them. I 
must admit their objective reality now. It is absurd 
to suppose they were fraudulently produced in this 
laboratory. 

"A stethoscope was taken from Cardarelli's pock- 

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THE SHADOW WORLD 

et and put together — a movement requiring the ac- 
tion of two hands. The noise of fingers running 
over the keys of a typewriter in the cabinet was plain- 
ly heard, although no writing came. At the fifth 
sitting the mandolin again moved as if alive (no one 
touching it), in a light that made all its movements 
observable; and as it did so Eusapias hand (tightly 
controlled by Bottazzi) made little movements as if 
to help the instrument to move. Each movement, 
though it ended in the air, seemed to affect the man- 
dolin. Bottazzi says: 'It would be necessary to 
have Paladino's fingers in the palm of one's hand, 
as I had that evening, in order to be convinced that 
the evolutions, twangings of the strings, etc., all 
synchronized with the very delicate movements of 
her fingers. ... I cannot describe the sensation one 
experiences when seeing an inanimate object moved, 
not for a moment merely, but for many minutes in 
succession, by a mysterious force.' ' 

"We observed no such synchronism," repeated 
Fowler. "We not only controlled Mrs. Smiley's 
hands, but nailed her to her chair. In a way, our 
test was more rigid than those you are describing. 
Our results were not so dramatic, but they were 
produced under test conditions, and their signifi- 
cance is as great as that of Bottazzi's lamp-light- 
ing" 

"But we did not have as much light on the me- 
dium, and, by-the-way, Miller, the spectral hands 

211 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

that I saw in your study, each larger than Mrs. 
Smiley' s hands, were as real to me as those Scarpa 
studied, and the books deposited on your table 
form as good a record, in their way, as the marks 
on his smoked-glass cylinder." 

"Furthermore, we had writing," added Fowler. 
"All of which Bottazzi would explain by his theory 
of an f astral arm.'" 

"Yes, but he secured something still more mar- 
vellous. He obtained the print of human hands 
in clay and also on smoked glass. He demon- 
strated that the invisible limbs of the psychic can- 
not only move objects at a distance, but that they 
can feel at a distance. 'Eusapia's attitude was that 
of a blindfolded person exploring space with her 
hands to find a lost object!' he exclaims, at one 
point. 'Eusapia opened my right hand, stretched 
out my three middle fingers, and, bending them on 
the table, tips downward, said, in a whisper: "How 
hard it is! What is it?" I did not understand/ 
says Bottazzi. 'She continued: "There, on the 
chair." "It is the clay," I said, quickly; "will 
you make the impression of a face?" "No," she 
replied, "it is too hard; take it away." Some one 
broke the chain to carry out her desire. He looked 
at the desk and saw the imprint of three fingers." 

"What I would like to know at this point," Har- 
ris quickly interposed, " is this : were the finger- 
marks lined like Bottazzi's or like the medium's ?" 

212 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"He does not say in this case, but, as I recall it, 
they found in other instances that the lines on the 
impressions made by Eusapia's invisible fingers 
were precisely like those of her material fingers, 
and yet no mark of flour or lamp-black remained 
attaching to her hands. In one case a perfumed 
clay was used, and, although the impressions se- 
cured 'resembled Eusapia's face grown old,' no 
scent of the wax could be detected on her cheeks. 
Bottazzi gives much space to these 'mediumistic 
explorations of the cabinet.' He could follow these 
blind, mysterious gropings of the invisible Eusapia 
by closely controlling the real Eusapia. ' Pres- 
ently she asked: "What is that round object? I 
feel something round." This was, in fact, the 
rubber ball which connected with a tube — the tube, 
in its turn, passing through the wall into another 
room where it operated a manometer. She pressed 
this ball with her invisible limbs, and the column 
rose and registered the pressure. This was entire- 
ly satisfactory to Bottazzi, who then says: 'I desire 
again to affirm that with her invisible limbs Eusa- 
pia feels the forms of objects and their consist- 
ency, feels heat and cold, hardness and softness, 
dampness and dryness neither more nor less than 
if she were touching and feeling with the hands 
imprisoned in ours. She feels with other hands, 
but perceives with the same brain with which she 
uses to talk with us.' 

2*3 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"The most astonishing physical phenomena came 
when the contact - breaker was thrown on the 
table, and Eusapia called out: 'See how it moves!' 
' We all directed our gaze toward the small object,' 
says Bottazzi, l and we saw that it oscillated and 
vibrated at an elevation of an inch or two above the 
surface of the table, as if seized with internal shiv- 
ering — Eusapia s hands, held by M. Galeotti and 
myself, being more than a foot from the contact- 
breaker. 9 " 

My auditors were now in the thrall of Bottazzi's 
story, and the silence was eloquent. At last Came- 
ron said: "It certainly seems like a clear case of 
* astral.' I begin to believe in our first sitting with 
Mrs. Smiley. What do you want us to do — an- 
nounce ourselves converted ?" 

"Certainly not," I replied. "We must not re- 
lax our vigilance, even though Bottazzi, Morselli, 
and their fellows seem to have proved the genu- 
ineness of the phenomena. At the same time, I 
admit it is a source of satisfaction to me to know 
that these Italian scientists, with conditions all 
their own, are willing to affirm that Eusapia 'feels 
with her invisible limbs,' and explores a cabinet 
while sitting under rigid control more than a yard 
away from the objects moved. My experiences 
point to this. How else could the cone be handled 
with such precision as was shown at your house, 
Miller ? Lombroso observed that chairs and vases 

214 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

moved as if guided by hands and eyes, and that 
the psychic could see as well behind her as in front. 
Mrs. Smiley has always been able to direct me 
exactly to the point where the cone or pencil had 
been flung. How can letters within closed slates 
be formed so beautifully and so precisely without 
some form of seeing ?" 

Fowler was ready with an answer: "At the final 
analysis all perception is due to some form of vi- 
bration. To be clairaudient is simply to be able 
to lay hold upon a different set of pulsations in the 
ether, and to be clairvoyant is to perceive directly 
without the aid of the eye, which is only a little 
camera, after all." 

"All this is merely a kind of prelude," I resumed, 
"for Bottazzi apparently proved that the invisible 
hand of Eusapia's invisible arm could not penetrate 
a cage of wire mesh that covered the telegraphic key 
in the cabinet. 'How, then, can we consider it to 
be a spirit hand — an immaterial hand — when a wire- 
netting can stop it ?' he very pertinently inquires." 

"That's what troubles me," said Miller. "If 
a phantom hand can bring a real book and thumb 
its leaves, or drum with a real pencil or write, why 
isn't it, for all practicable purposes, a real hand ?" 

"What is a real hand ?" retorted Fowler. "Isn't 
the latest word of science to the effect that matter 
like the human body is only a temporary condition 
of force ?" 

215 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Precisely so; and every advance along the line 
of these experiments goes to prove the power of 
mind to transform matter. It almost seems to me 
at times as though these psychic minds were able 
to reduce matter to its primal atom and reshape it. 
In Bottazzi's seventh sitting, under the same rigor- 
ous restraint of Eusapia, a vase of flowers was trans- 
ported, a rose was set in a lady's hair, a small drum 
was seized and beaten rhythmically, an enormous 
black fist came out from behind the curtain, and an 
open hand seized Bottazzi gently by the neck. Now 
listen to his own words: 'Letting go my hold of 
Professor Poso's hand,' he says, 'I felt for this 
ghostly hand and clasped it. It was a left hand, 
neither hot nor cold, with rough, bony fingers which 
dissolved under pressure. It did not retire by pro- 
ducing a sensation of withdrawal — it dissolved, " de- 
materialized," melted.'" 

I paused to say: "Remember, this is not the tale 
of a perfervid spiritist. On the contrary, it is the 
scientific account of a laboratory experiment by a 
physiologist of high rank. The incident is not a 
part of a seance in the home of a medium in a 
dark parlor full of side -doors and trick windows. 
It is a registered phenomenon in the physiolog- 
ical department of a great university, occurring 
under scientific test conditions. I confess it gives 
verity to many a doubtful thing I have myself 



seen." 



216 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"It certainly staggers me," said Cameron. 
"How does the scientific gentleman explain it?" 

"He goes on to say: 'Another time, later on, the 
same hand was placed on my right forearm — I 
saw a human hand, of natural color, and I felt 
with mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and 
nervous. The hand dissolved (I saw it with my 
own eyes) and retreated as if into Madame Pala- 
dino s body, describing a curve. If all the observed 
phenomena of these seven seances were to disap- 
pear from my memory, this one I could never 
forget.' " 

Fowler was smiling with calm disdain. "Let 
him go on with his psycho-dynamic theories. He 
will be confounded yet. These are only the first 
stages of the game." 

"But all this happened while the hands of the 
psychic were merely held," protested Miller. "He 
says he controlled her hands rigorously. Why didn't 
he handcuff her, or nail her down ? The facts he 
claims to have established are too subversive to 
accept on his word alone." 

This amused me. "There you go again! Not 
satisfied with wonders, you want miracles. Hap- 
pily, you may be satisfied. In the eighth sitting, 
which took place in the same room of the physio- 
logical laboratory, with Bottazzi, Madame Bottazzi, 
Professor Galeotti, Doctors Jappelli and d'Errico 
present, Eusapia submitted to the most rigorous 
is 217 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

restraint of her life. Two iron rings were fastened 
to the floor, and by means of strong cords, which 
were sealed with lead seals like those used in fas- 
tening a railway car, her wrists were rigidly confined. 
She was, in fact, bound like a criminal; and yet the 
spectral hands and fists came and went, jugs of 
water floated about, and as a final stupendous 
climax, while Galeotti was controlling Eusapia's 
right arm, which was also manacled, he saw the du- 
plications of her left arm. 'Look!' he exclaimed, 
'i see two left arms identical in appearance. 
One is on the little table. The other seems 
to come out of the medium's shoulder, touch 
Madame Bottazzi, and then return to Eu- 
sapia's body again. This is not an hallucina- 
tion. I AM CONSCIOUS OF TWO SIMULTANEOUS 
VISUAL SENSATIONS WHEN MADAME BOTTAZZI 
SAYS SHE HAS BEEN TOUCHED.' " 

For a moment the entire company sat in silence, 
as though stunned by the force of my blow. Then 
all turned to Miller as though to ask: "What do 
you think of that ?" 

He slowly replied: "To grant the possible putting 
forth of a supernumerary arm and hand would make 
physiological science foolish. It is easier to imag- 
ine these gentlemen suffering a collective hallucina- 
tion." 

"Ah! Bottazzi provided against all that. He 
called in the aid of self-registering contrivances. 

218 ^ 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

It won't do, Miller — he proved the objective reality 
of ' spirit phenomena.' He lifted the whole per- 
formance to the plane of the test-tube, the electric 
light, and the barometer. His experiments, his de- 
ductions, came as a splendid sequence to an almost 
equally searching series by Crookes, Zollner, Wal- 
lace, Thury, Flammarion, Maxwell, Lombroso, 
Richet, Foa, and Morselli. His laboratory was 
the crucible wherein came the final touch of heat 
which fuses all the discordant facts into a solid 
ingot of truth." 

"But, to me, he is misreading the facts," ob- 
jected Fowler. "I maintain that he is as preju- 
diced in his way as the spiritist. He says: 'The 
mediumistic limbs explored the cabinet.' A spirit- 
ist would say: 'John King explored the cabinet.' 
The synchronism he speaks of might exist, and only 
be a proof of what the spiritist admits — that the 
presence and activity of the materializing spirit are 
closely circumscribed by the medium." 

"Bottazzi proved the relationship to be some- 
thing more intimate than that. He demonstrated 
that the movement of the hands in the cabinet and 
of those outside had a common origin — namely, 
the will and brain of Eusapia. He proved that 
these invisible hands were, after all, material, and 
limited in their powers. He proved that the 'spir- 
its' shared all Eusapia's likes and dislikes, and 
knew no more of chloride of iron or ferro-cyanide 

219 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

of potassium than she herself possessed — in short, 
while admitting the mystery of the process, he re- 
duces all these phenomena to human, terrestrial 
level, and relates them wholly and simply to the 
brain and will of the psychic. Perhaps his state 
of mind is best expressed at the close of his state- 
ment concerning the registration of the movements 
of 'the spirit hand.' He says, in effect: 'These 
tracings demonstrate irrefutably that the keys were 
repeatedly pressed with perfect synchronism, the 
outside key with Eusapia's left hand, the one 
inside the cabinet by another, which a convinced 
spiritist would call that of a " materialized spirit," 
and which I believe to be neither the one nor the 
other, although I am not able to explain what it 
was.' " 

"Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!" exclaimed 
Brierly. "After that superb test, why didn't he 
frankly say the discarnate had been proved ?" 

"Because his proof, his knowledge, was not yet 
sufficient. Besides, it requires heroic courage to 
admit our ignorance. 'I don't know,' he says, and 
that is the attitude of Morselli. Dr. Foa believes 
the phenomena to come within the domain of nat- 
ural law, and to result from a transmutation of 
energy accumulated in the medium. He calls this 
'vital energy' or 'psychic energy,' and adds: 'If 
these phenomena appear strange by virtue of their 
comparative rarity, they are not really more mar- 

220 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

vellous than the biological phenomena which we 
witness every day/" 

"According to this theory, then," said Miller, 
"Mrs. Smiley has remained, as you believe, mo- 
tionless in her chair, but has been able to 'energize' 
at a distance." 

"More than that. She has been able to emit 
supernumerary etheric limbs, perhaps a complete 
material double of herself, which is able to move 
with lightning speed and perfect precision. It is 
this actual extern alization of both matter and sense 
that makes darkness so essential to the medium. 
Vivid light forces this effluvia, this mysterious dou- 
ble, back into its originating body with disrupting 
haste. Witness the several times when Mrs. Smiley 
was convulsed merely by being touched at the 
wrong moment." 

"There is a different interpretation to be put upon 
the psychic's hatred of light," remarked Howard. 

"By-the-way, yet bearing on this very subject, I 
read in the Annals of Psychic Science the account 
of a singular experiment in the matter of indepen- 
dent writing. A certain Dr. Encausse, in giving 
a lecture before the Society for Psychical Research 
at Nancy, said that in 1889, having heard that a 
professional magnetizer named Robert was able to 
put a subject into such a state of hypnosis that he 
could project lines of writing on paper without use 
of pen or pencil, he was curious to see the perform- 

221 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ance. Together with a colleague, Dr. Gibier, En- 
causse hastened to witness this marvel. One of the 
subjects was a girl of seventeen. The magnetizer 
put her to sleep, 'and during this seance,' says Dr. 
Encausse, 'we were able to obtain in full light on a 
sheet of paper signed by twenty witnesses, the pre- 
cipitation of a whole page of written verses signed 
" Corneille." I examined under the microscope the 
substance that formed the writing, and I was led to 
the conclusion that it consisted of globules of hu- 
man blood, some scattered as if calcined, others 
quite distinct. I thus verified the theory of the oc- 
cultists of 1850 that the nervous energy as well as 
the physical force of a medium, the material of 
which he is constituted, such as his blood, could 
exteriorize itself and reconstruct itself at a dis- 
tance.' " 

"What a stunning experiment!" exclaimed Cam- 
eron. 

"Important, if true," sneered Harris. 

"What do you know about this learned doctor ?" 
asked Miller. 

"Nothing; but you will see that these later ex- 
periments of the Italian scientists are sustaining De 
Rochas and Aksakof in their claim that the me- 
dium is in a sense dematerialized to build up the 
phantasms. Dr. Encausse goes on to say: 'More- 
over, the medium who had produced this phenomenon 
was preparing for the stage and had been studying 

222 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Corneille during the whole of the preceding day. I 
was thus able to discover the origin of the sub- 
stance of the materialization of the writing, and 
also its psychic origin.' In other words, he claims 
that the message was not from the shade of the 
great dramatist, but was a precipitation of the 
blood of the psychic and an exercise of her sub- 
conscious mind, all of which accords with Bottazzi's 
theory. 

"Now, then," said I, in the tone of one about to 
conclude, "in the light of these experiments, my 
own sitting at Miller's, and especially those that I 
held at Fowler's house, take on the greatest signifi- 
cance. Miller, Mrs. Smiley's visible limbs did not 
handle the books — of that I am positive — and yet 
I am equally certain that she governed every move- 
ment." 

" But what about the voices ?" asked Fowler. 
"Does this theory cover the whispering person- 
alities we heard ? What about ' Wilbur' and 
'Maudie'?" 

"That's easy," retorted Howard. "Once you 
explain the manipulation of the cone, the rest is 
merely clever ventriloquism." 

"There is nothing 'easy' about any of these 
phenomena," I answered. "As Richet says, they 
are absurd, but they are observed facts. It would 
not be fair to the spiritists to end the account of 
these sittings without frankly stating that there 

223 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

were many other phenomena very difficult to ex- 
plain by Bottazzi's theory. There came a time, 
as he admits, when 'a mysterious entity behind 
the curtain, among us, almost in contact with us, 
was felt all the time.' This entity was supposed 
to be 'John King/ the psychic's control. This be- 
ing, invisible for the most part, gave roses to those 
he liked, conversed freely, and in one case threw 
a bunch of flowers in the face of one of the sitters 
to whom Eusapia had taken a dislike. A little la- 
ter 'John ' presented a small drum from behind the 
curtain, and, when Galeotti tried to take it, 'John' 
pulled it out of his hands. Again he offered it, and 
Galeotti seized it, and the two fought for its pos- 
session with such violence that the drum was nearly 
torn to pieces." 

"Where was Paladino meanwhile ?" asked Miller. 

"Seated quietly in the grasp of Bottazzi and 
Madame Bottazzi. Galeotti then raised the drum 
in his hand, high above his head and against the 
curtain, and requested 'John' to beat it. 'John' 
pushed a hand against the drum and beat a muffled 
tattoo. All this was utterly out of the psychic's 
reach. The strife over the drum would seem to 
argue a complete and powerful figure behind the 
curtain." 

" In other words, a spirit," said Brierly. 

"Not so fast," put in Miller. "I am content to 
plod with these Italian scientists. Let us establish 

224 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

one supernormal fact and then reach for another. 
You fellows with your ' reincarnations/ and the 
spiritist with his foolish messages from Cleopatra, 
Raphael, and Shakespeare, have confused the sit- 
uation. We must begin all over again. If all that 
Garland is detailing is true — I have not read these 
reports he speaks of — then it is our duty to take up 
the scrutiny of these facts as a part of biologic 
science." 

Fowler clapped his hands. "Bravo! that is all 
we ask of you. To study frogs and mosquitoes, to 
peer close into the constitution of the blood or the 
brain of man, is useful; but, to my mind, the ques- 
tions raised by these Continental experimentalists 
are the most vital now clamoring for answer." 

"Bottazzi says, with regard to his eighth and 
final sitting: 'The results of this seance were very 
favorable, because they eliminated the slightest 
trace of suspicion or uncertainty relative to the 
genuineness of the phenomena. W 7 e obtained the 
same kind of assurance as that which we have con- 
cerning physical, chemical, or physiological phe- 
nomena. Henceforth sceptics can only deny the 
facts by accusing us of fraud and charlatanism. 
I should be very much surprised if any one were 
bold enough to bring the charge against us, but it 
would not disturb our minds in the least. From 
this time forward the medium who wishes to prove 
the truth of her phenomena will be obliged to per- 

225 






THE SHADOW WORLD 

mit the same kind of experimentation which Eusapia 
so adequately sustained.' " 

"Well, now," said Cameron, "the practical ques- 
tion is this : are we to go on with our investigation ?" 

"I am ready," said Miller, promptly. "Gar- 
land, will you purvey another psychic and conduct 
the pursuit ?" 

"Yes, provided you all come in with spirits at- 
tuned, ready to wait patiently and observe silently. 
The law of these materializations seems to be this: 
the forces of the psychic are proportional to the 
harmoniousness of the circle and in inverse propor- 
tion to the light. Accepting this law as proved by 
our illustrious fellow-experimenters abroad, are you 
ready to try again along the lines they have marked 
out ?" 

As with one voice, all agreed. 

"Very well," said I; "I will see what I can do 
for you in the way of a new psychic and new 
phenomena. We will now experiment with design 
to prove the identity of the reappearing dead. Of 
this I am fully persuaded. Men will be discover- 
ing new laws of nature ten thousand years from 
now, just as they are to-day. It is inconceivable 
that the secrets of the universe should ever be 
entirely made plain. The world of mystery re- 
tires before the dawn. Nothing is really explained 
—what we call familiar facts are at bottom in- 
explicable mysteries, and must ever remain so." 

226 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Then why go on ? Why not stop now and save 
ourselves the trouble of investigation ?" 

"Because there is joy in the pursuit — because it 
is in the nature of man to pursue this quest. Who 
knows but the conclusions of Venzano and Mor- 
selli, of Bottazzi and Foa, have opened new vistas 
in human nature? These 'supernormal powers' 
may chance to be of immense value to the race, 
quite aside from their bearing upon the problem 
of death. Furthermore, these reports come at a 
time when a hard-and-fast literalism of interpreta- 
tion is the fashion among scientists like Miller. 
Perhaps they and the art of the day will alike be 
offered new inspiration by these mystifying enlarge- 
ments of human faculty. I for one feel profoundly 
indebted to these brave and clear-brained Italian 
scientists. I should like to see the physicists of our 
own universities busying themselves with this most 
absorbing and vital problem." 

"But they don't," retorted Fowler. "They will 
not even read Bottazzi's reports." 

And I fear he is justified in his belief. 

[As I am reading proof on this page a fat letter from a 
friend in Naples conies to my desk, filled with the several 
corroborative accounts of a special sitting with Paladino 
which Professor Bottazzi kindly arranged for them. My 
correspondent is a New York editor, and in his party of six 
was the associate professor of chemistry in a big Eastern col- 
lege. After detailing the many marvellous phenomena which 

took place in his presence, Professor M says: "In view of 

the phenomena with which I am habitually concerned, I did 

227 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

not want to believe in Paladino's supernormal powers, but I 
had to accept what I saw." These reports bring Bottazzi's 
experiments closer to the dead. I hope they will bring them 
a little nearer to my readers. "Bottazzi has no slightest 
doubt of the phenomena," is the concluding line of my friend's 
letter.)] 



VIII 

CAMERON'S society never came together again 
in formal session, and I was not able to carry 
out my plan for developing a psychic along the line 
of proving the identity of the spirits manifesting. 
However, between the final sitting of the club and 
my next meeting with Fowler and Miller, I passed 
through a series of very interesting experiences 
more or less corroborative of the phenomena which 
the members had witnessed either individually or 
as a body. These additional experiments I pro- 
ceeded at once to lay before my friends as we met 
at the club one quiet afternoon a couple of weeks 
later. 

"We haven't heard of any new psychic," Miller 
began at once, as we settled into easy-chairs in a 
retired corner. 

"No," I replied. "I've been unable to get the 
consent of any other psychic to undergo just the 
inquisition I know you'd like to give, but I've had 
some extremely suggestive sittings recently with a 
young professional man who does a little medium- 
istic 'work' on the side." 

ZZ9 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"A male psychic? That's amusing. I thought 
they were all female." 

"No. There are men psychics," replied Fowler, 
"but they're scarce. One of the most wonderful 
I have ever known is a big, burly fellow of most 
aggressive manner. The reason why there are so 
few men in the business I take to be this: men are 
less subjective, less passive, than women, and the 
psychic's role seems to be a negative one. Men are 
aggressive and impatient, engaged in some kind of 
struggle with material things, or they are intolerant 
of the process of developing their psychic gifts. If 
Garland has found a male psychic, he is in luck." 

"So I thought. The young fellow, whom we 
will call Peters, is only about twenty-four, a boyish 
professional man of refined habits. He comes of 
good family, and, being ambitious in his profession, 
is careful not to permit a knowledge of his psychical 
powers to reach the ears of his employers. I heard 
of him through a friend who is deeply interested in 
these matters, and who procured for me an invita- 
tion to be present at a sitting in the home of a cer- 
tain Dr. Towne, on the East Side. 

"We met at dinner, and during the meal Dr. 
Towne told us all he knew of Mr. Peters, which 
was little, and, turning to me, said : ' We expect you 
to take charge of the circle, Mr. Garland; it's all 
new to us.' 

"'The first thing to do,' I answered, 'is to put 
230 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

the young fellow at his ease. It is a mighty good 
sign when a medium is willing to come into a strange 
house to perform for a circle as critical and as un- 
friendly as this/ 'Oh, not unfriendly/ said Dr. 
Towne. 'Well,' I said, 'I wouldn't call three prac- 
tising physicians, who have never seen a psychic at 
close range, a friendly group. '" 

"Were there three doctors present?" asked 
Fowler. 

"Yes, and my friend was a notably keen-eyed 
man himself. I really had no faith that the young 
fellow could do anything remarkable for us, but I 
didn't say so. 

"We were still at the table when our young 
psychic was announced, and, with a knowledge of 
how necessary it was that he should be in a com- 
fortable frame of mind, I went out to the library 
to meet him and make his acquaintance. I wished 
to put him at his ease — so far as I was concerned, at 
least. 

"I found him to be but a pale stripling, with 
slender limbs and brilliant eyes. He was plainly 
nervous and a little dogmatic in manner. He told 
me that he was twenty-four years of age, but he 
did not look to be nineteen. He said he had been 
aware of his power about four years, and that his 
grandfather and a man named 'Evans' were those 
who most frequently spoke. 'I have no "guides,"' 
he said, rather contemptuously. 

231 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"The place for the sitting was not especially 
favorable. It was a reception - room midway be- 
tween the doctor's office and the dining-room, and 
was rather large and difficult to close off from the 
rest of the house. After the windows had been 
darkened in the usual manner, Peters arranged the 
chairs so that his seat came between Dr. Towne 
and Mrs. Towne. Dr. Merriam came next to 
Towne. This brought me two places away from 
Peters and next to a stout German woman whose 
name, as I understood it, was Mrs. Steinert. On 
Mrs. Towne's right sat Dr. Paul and Professor 
Franks, my friend. Within the circle Towne had 
set a small table, on which were placed pencils and 
paper. The chain was formed by locking our little 
fingers tightly. If we may depend on the word of 
those present, this chain of hands remained un- 
broken for two hours. The room at first was per- 
fectly dark. 

"For half an hour we sat at ease, talking a little 
now and then, but leaving the direction of the whole 
affair to Peters. He hinted to us — and this I wish 
to particularly emphasize — that he went out of his 
body. He said: 'When I think toward any one or 
toward a thing, I am there. I am all around it. 
If I think toward a person, I am there — all around 
him — inside of him/ In pursuit of this idea, I 
then asked: 'Are you conscious of your body which 
you have left behind ? Are you conscious of being 

232 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

in the upper part of the room, for instance, and do 
you see your body below you ?' 

"'No,' said he; 'I am conscious of being in a 
certain place, but I am not conscious of being in 
two places at the same time.' He told us of his 
development, which came about through attend- 
ance on a circle with another psychic. He said 
he had been experimenting for about four years. 
I asked him if it had affected his health in any way, 
and he replied: 'No, it does not weary me any more 
than prolonged study might do. I am very fond 
of playing chess, and I find that I do not play so 
well after a sitting — that's all.' He said the only 
sign of the special condition which produced these 
phenomena was a nervous tremor in his limbs. 

"The first evidence of 'the force' came in steady 
tappings upon Mrs. Towne's chair. The young man 
said: 'This is my friend "Evans,"' and thereupon 
I began to direct the sitting through 'Evans.' In 
answer to my questions, he said that he would 
do what he could do for us. I asked him if he 
would write, and he answered by tapping that he 
would try. 

"Shortly after this promise, sounds as of hands 
were heard about the table. Sheets of paper were 
plainly being written upon and torn off the pad. 
One of these was flourished in my face, while the 
linked fingers of the psychic were firmly held by Dr. 
Towne and his wife. All of those in the circle ex- 
16 233 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

cepting Mrs. Steinert and myself were new to this 
business, and much impressed. 

"At the precise moment when these hands were 
at work writing, and a little later while they patted 
Mrs. Towne's cheek and tapped on the doctor's 
shirt-front, I asked: 'Are you controlling his hands ?' 
'Yes/ responded the doctor, who, by-the-way, 
is a vigorous young scientist and had never before 
experimented with these forces. His reply was 
echoed by Mrs. Towne, who remained perfectly 
calm and clear-headed throughout the entire sitting. 

"Thus far the phenomena were precisely similar 
to those we have had with Mrs. Smiley, but we were 
soon to have proofs of greater power. While the 
chain of hands continued unbroken, mysterious 
fingers clutched Dr. Towne's arm and drummed 
upon his shirt-front. At length the same mystic 
fingers began to take off his tie, and, while I warn- 
ingly called out, ' Be sure of your psychic's hands,' 
the doctor's collar was taken away and put around 
his wife's neck. His tie was then added to the 
collar. Mrs. Towne announced that, while hold- 
ing firmly to the psychic, she felt the touch of two 
hands about her face,- and a few moments there- 
after Dr. Merriam, seated next to Dr. Towne, said 
he felt a strong pressure upon his arm, as if some 
one were leaning upon it. 

"A little later these hands began to unbutton 
Dr. Towne's shirt-front, and several pencils were 

234 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

stuffed inside. Hands patted and touched those 
who sat within a radius of about a yard of the 
psychic; apparently the forces could not reach to 
where I sat. I complained of this, and almost im- 
mediately the psychic said there was some one for 
me, and in answer to my question, ' Is there some one 
present for me ?' the pencil rapped three times upon 
the table in the affirmative. At my request this 
' spirit' wrote his name upon a piece of paper, tore 
it off, and threw it in my lap. A moment later 
something hard and crackling came over the table. 
' My cuffs have been removed,' the psychic called out. 

"Having in mind one of the extraordinary experi- 
ments of Zollner, I then asked 'Evans' to remove 
Dr. Towne's vest. I said : ' If we can get that, it 
will be in effect a confirmation of Zollner's theory 
of the fourth dimension.' 

"For a few moments hands touched and patted 
Dr. Towne as if with intent to make this experi- 
ment but gave it up, and Peters announced that 
they were at work around him. It could not have 
been more than a minute later when I felt some- 
thing soft thrown in my lap. I did not know what 
this was, and did not care to break the circle at the 
moment to find out, and the information was vol- 
unteered by the psychic that the 'spirits' had re- 
moved his vest, and this we afterward found to be 
the case, for at the close of the sitting his vest was 
lying at my feet." 

235 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Oh, come now," said Miller, "you don't intend 
to convey — ■" 

" I am telling exactly what took place," I replied. 

"Peters then said to Dr. Towne: * Think of some 
signature, not your own, that you know very well, 
and I will reproduce it/ After a little silence the 
sound of writing could be heard, and the tap of 
a pencil announced that its task was done. The 
sheet of paper was then ripped from the pad, a very 
definite action, as you may believe, and the sound 
of the sheet being folded was plainly heard." 

"That would require a thumb and finger and 
afterward two hands," remarked Miller. 

"Precisely; and they were there, notwithstand- 
ing the hands of the psychic could be felt (so Dr. 
Towne and Mrs. Towne both said) with no move- 
ment but a convulsive quivering. 

"I then asked * Evans' if he could not lift the 
table for us, and he replied by tapping that he would 
try; and a few moments later the psychic, whose 
hands and feet began to pass through a period of 
tremor, warningly called out: 'Now please be very 
quiet, and don't break the circle.' I could hear 
him take a deep breath, and a moment later the 
table rose and passed over Mrs. Towne's head so 
closely that she was obliged to lean to the right to 
avoid it, and we all heard it gently deposited not far 
from the psychic's right hand. While this was 
done, both Dr. Towne and Mrs. Towne affirmed 

236 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

that their ringers were locked with those of the 
psychic. 

"Here, again, was a phenomenon, inconclusive in 
itself, from the fact that we could not see the table 
move, and yet which coheres with an immense body 
of inexplicable similar movements in the reports of 
Flammarion and Lombroso. It was impossible for 
the medium to lift this weight over Mrs. Towne's 
head, even if his right arm had been completely 
free, for the stand, though small, was heavy. I 
regarded this, at the moment, as an authentic case 
of telekinesis, and my further experience with this 
psychic has not weakened that conviction. 

"Shortly after this the psychic broke up the circle, 
saying that, as conditions were favorable, he would 
try to produce materialized forms. 

"Taking the chair which was occupied by Mrs. 
Steinert, he withdrew into the passage-way leading 
to the dining-room, requesting that the circle re- 
solve itself into a half- circle facing the cabinet. 
You will remember that we were in a private house, 
and that all question of collusion is barred out. 
Shortly after he took his seat in this little recess, 
two or three brilliant lights, like the twisting flame 
of a small candle — a curious, glowing, yet not ra- 
diant violet flame — developed, high up on the out- 
side of the portieres which formed the cabinet, and 
drifted across and up toward the ceiling, where 
they silently vanished. I think there must have 

237 






THE SHADOW WORLD 

been three of these, which were followed by a broad, 
glowing mass of what looked like white - hot metal 
— a singular light, unlike anything I had ever 
seen. It made me think of the substance described 
by Sir William Crookes and other experimenters 
abroad. At the moment this appeared — or possi- 
bly a little before it — a wild whoop was heard — 
very startling indeed, as if a door had suddenly 
been opened by a roguish boy and closed again. 
This practically ended the seance. 

"As we lighted up I had first interest for the ob- 
ject which had been thrown across to me. It proved 
to be a vest, which the psychic said was his. It was 
a soft gray vest, and matched his suit, and was 
without any trick seams — so far as I could see — 
being whole and uninjured. In the inside pocket a 
folded leaf of the paper from the pad was stuffed, 
and on this was the signature 'Alfred Towne,' which 
Dr. Towne said was an exact reproduction of his 
brother's autograph. On the sheet of paper which 
had been thrown to me was the simple word 'Taft.' 
This was taken by the circle to be a prophecy on 
the election, but, as my wife's family name is Taft, 
I put a different interpretation upon it. On the 
whole, the sitting made a profound impression 
upon me. It was not so much one thing as many 
things, all cohering with what I already knew of 
telekinetic phenomena. It was not a test sit- 
ting, as Peters acknowledged, but it was by no 

238 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

means easy to deceive under the control we exer- 
cised. 

"There were many things of interest aside from 
the physical happenings. The young man did not 
go into a trance, but remained perfectly normal. 
He took part in the conversation, answered all 
questions, and lent himself perfectly to the experi- 
ment. He said that if we would sit with him again 
he was sure we could have more light. 'I don't 
care to be known as a medium,' he declared. ' I like 
the study of law, and I want to be a lawyer — -not a 
sensitive. In the first place, the law pays better, 
and, in the second place, it isn't considered a nice 
thing to be a medium. However, I will sit again 
for you, if you want me to, and I am sure you will 
get many other things in the light.' And he add- 
ed to me later: 'We can get all these phenom- 
ena with no one present but ourselves. Come 
down to my home some evening and we will try 
again.' " 

"Did you accept his invitation?" asked Miller. 

"Yes; but before I did so we had another sitting 
at Dr. Towne's house, which gave me a closer view 
of all that went on, for I was permitted to sit at his 
left and grip his little finger. The circle was slightly 
changed the next time, and on his right sat a young 
lady whom we will call Miss Brown. She was a 
wide-awake and very unexcitable person, and I be- 
lieve kept close hold on the psychic's right hand. 

239 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

In addition to our linked ringers, the psychic's hands 
were tied to ours with dental floss. 

"There was considerable light in the room this 
time, and as the nervous tremor developed in the 
psychic's hands and legs I imagined I could see a 
grayish vapor form just between and a little above 
our clasped hands. Suddenly I saw a shadowy 
arm dart forth from the cloud, and I felt the clasp 
of a firm hand on my wrist. It was a right hand. 
'Are you controlling the psychic's hand?' I de- 
manded of Miss Brown. 'Yes,' she replied, alertly. 
Even as I spoke I saw the mysterious limb dart out 
and seize upon a pencil which lay upon the table. 
Again and again I saw this 'apparition' emerge 
from that vaporous cloud and handle the pad in 
the middle of the table. I could see three fingers 
on the under-side of the pad as it was held before 
the psychic's face, and these facts I announced to 
the other members of the circle, who could not see 
as plainly as I could. Sometimes the arm seemed 
white, sometimes black, and always it appeared to 
be a right hand." 

"That is to say, your control was more vigorous 
than that of Miss Brown," remarked Miller. 

"A doubter might say so, and yet the thread 
which bound us had some value. One of the most 
extraordinary performances was the lifting of a 
glass of water which set in the centre of the table. 
I could see the glass plainly as it rose to the psy- 

240 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

chic's lips. It seemed to be sustained by a broad 
beam of vapor, or it may have been a slim arm 
clothed in white." 

"Probably the psychic's." 

"Possibly; but I don't see how it could have been. 
However, I do not place very much value upon it 
as standing alone, but, considered in connection 
with the performances of Eusapia, it becomes a lit- 
tle more nearly credible." 

"But all this is very far from being an evidence 
of anything like intelligence," protested Fowler. 
"It seems very trivial to me." 

"It does not seem trivial to me," I answered; 
"but I will admit that it has nothing like the value 
of a series of sittings I held last spring with a psy- 
chic in a mid-Western city." 



EX 



THE reader will have observed that up to the 
present moment I have not emphasized in 
any way the question o\ the identity of the "intelli- 
gences *' that have manifested themselves. The 
reason for this lies in the fact that I was still seeking 
evidence concerning the processes o\ medinmship. 
However, being convinced (by reason o\" my own 
experiments, supported by those of Lombroso, 
Morselli, and Bottazzi) that the facts o\ medium- 
ship exist, it is mv purpose to take up definitely the 
question of identity, which is the final and most 
elusive part o\ the problem it may turn out to be 
the insoluble part ot the problem. 

If you ask why it should be insoluble, 1 reply, 
because it concerns the mystery oi death, and it 
may be that it is not well for us to penetrate the ulti- 
mate shadow. Among all the men o\ the highest 
rank who admit the reality of apparitions and voices, 
there are but few as vet who are willing to assert 
that the dead manifest themselves. Bv this I mean 
that though some o\ them, like Crookes, for exam- 
ple, believe in "the intervention o\ disearnate in- 

243 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

telligences," they are not ready to grant that these 
intelligences are their grandfathers returning to the 
scene of their earthly labors. 

I said something like this to Miller and Fowler, 
when we met at the club one afternoon not long 
after the final meeting of Cameron's Amateur Psy- 
chical Society, and I added: "I must confess that 
most of the spirits I have met seem to me merely 
parasitic or secondary personalities (to use Max- 
well's term), drawn from the psychic or from myself. 
Nearly every one of the mediums I have studied has 
had at least one guide, whose voice and habit of 
thought were perilously similar to her own. This, 
in some cases, has been laughable, as when ' Rolling 
Thunder,' a Sioux chief (Indians are all chiefs in 
the spirit world), appears and says: 'Goot efening, 
friends; id iss a nice night alretty.' And yet I have 
seen a whole roomful of people receive communi- 
cations from a spirit of this kind with solemn awe. 
I burn with shame for the sitters and psychic when 
this kind of thing is going on." 

"You visit the wrong mediums," said Fowler. 
" Such psychics are on a low plane. I never go to 
those who associate with Indians." 

"But mediums are all alike in this respect. I 
don't suppose Mrs. Smiley realizes that 'Maudie' 
would be called by a doubter a falsetto disguise of 
her own voice, and 'Wilbur' a shrewd and humor- 
ous personification of her subconscious self; or, if 

243 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

she does, she probably ascribes it to the process 
of materialization which * takes from' the medi- 
um. Never but once have I had the sensation 
of being in the presence of a real spirit personal- 
ity, and that happened to me only a few days 
ago." 

"It must have been an extraordinary experience 
to have made so deep an impression upon you," 
said Fowler. 

"Yes, it was extraordinary. It had the personal 
element in it to a much greater degree than any 
case I had hitherto studied, and seemed a direct 
attempt at identification on the part of a powerful 
and original individuality but recently ' passed out.' 
It came about in this way: 

" I met, not long ago, at the home of a friend in a 
Western city, a woman who was said to be able to 
produce whispers independent of her own organs 
of speech. I was assured by those in whom I had 
confidence that these voices could be heard in the 
broad light of day, in the open air, anywhere the 
psychic happened to be, and that her 'work' was 
of an exceptionally high character. I was keenly 
interested, as you may imagine, and asked for a 
sitting. Mrs. Hartley, as we will call her, fixed a 
day and hour in her own house for the trial, and I 
went to the sitting a few days later with high expec- 
tations of her 'phase.' I found her living in a small 
frame house on a pleasant street, with nothing to 

244 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

indicate that it was a meeting-place of mortals and 
their 'spirit guides.' 

"Mrs. Hartley was quite evidently a woman of 
power and native intelligence. After a few minutes 
of general conversation she took me up to her study 
on the second floor, a sunny little den on the east 
side of the house, which was not in the least sug- 
gestive of hocus-pocus. A broad mission table, two 
bookcases, a few flowers, and a curious battered 
old black walnut table completed the furnishing 
of the room, which indicated something rather 
studious and thoughtful in the owner. 

" Mrs. Hartley asked me to be seated, and added, 
'Please write on a sheet of paper the names of such 
friends as you would like to communicate with.' 
She then left the room on some household errand, 
and while she was gone I wrote the name of her 
guide, 'Dr. Cooke' (out of compliment), and added 
that of a musical friend whom I will call 'Ernest 
Alexander.' I also wrote the names 'Jessie' and 
'David,' folded the sheet once, and retained it un- 
der my hand. Upon her return the psychic seated 
herself at the battered oval table, and, taking up a 
pair of hinged school slates, began to clean them 
with a cloth. I am not going to detail my pre- 
cautions. You must take my detective work for 
granted. Moreover, in this case I was awaiting the 
voices; the slate-writing was gratuitous. She took 
the slates (between which I had dropped my slip 

245 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

of paper), and, putting them beneath the table, 
asked me to hold one corner." 

44 1 wish they wouldn't do that," protested Fowler. 
"It isn't necessary. I've had messages on slates 
held in my own hands six feet from the psychic." 

"As we sat thus she told me that she had never 
been in a trance, and that she never permitted the 
dark. ' I force my guides to work in the light,' she 
said. She declared that the whispers which I was 
presently to hear came to her under all conditions, 
and that her spirit friends talked to her familiarly 
as she went about her household duties. She as- 
sured me that 'they' were a great help and comfort 
to her. 'Dr. Cooke' was her ever-present guide 
and counsellor, and her father and brother were 
always near. 

"It was plain that she did not stand in awe of 
them, for after half an hour's wait she grew impa- 
tient and called out in an imperious tone: 'Come, 
dear, I want you. Come, anybody.' Two or three 
times she spoke loudly, clearly, as if calling to some 
one through a thick wall. This interested me ex- 
ceedingly. Generally psychics are very humble and 
patient with their 'guides/ A few moments later 
the slates began to slam about so violently benearh 
the table that her arm was bruised, and she pro- 
tested sharply: 'Don't do that. You will break 
the slates and the table both!' Thereupon the 
'forces' quieted down till only a peculiar quiver 

246 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

remained in them. I could hear writing going on 
steadily. 

"At last a tap came to announce that the mes- 
sages were written. The psychic withdrew the 
slates and handed them across the table to me. I 
opened them and took out my paper. On one slate 
was a message from 'Dr. Cooke,' the guide; on the 
other were these words, written in slate-pencil: 'I 
would that you could see me as I am now, still occu- 
pied, and happy to be busy. 1 This was followed by 
four lines and three little marks, evidently intended 
to symbolize a bar of music, and the whole was 
signed, 'E. Alexander/ The writing was firm and 
manly, but I did not recognize it as that of my 
friend. 

"The second trial resulted in this vague communi- 
cation: 'My dear friend, dont overdo. Earth is 
but one life. Many I recall. I tried to give expres- 
sion to my one talent.' This was signed 'Ernest 
Alexander.' Both these replies, as you see, were 
very general in phraseology, but the third message 
came closer to the individual: e I was so tired and 
not myself. I am well and in the world of progress. 
Ernest Alexander! The bar of music again ap- 
peared, this time much more 'developed.'" 

Miller stopped me here. "All this is quite sim- 
ple. Mrs. Hartley opened and read your note and, 
following up the clew, simply did some neat trick- 
writing beneath the table." 

247 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"It is not so simple as all that," I answered. 
"She was interrupted about this time by the door- 
bell, and while she was gone I wrote on another 
piece of paper: 'Ernest, give me a test of your iden- 
tity. Write a bar from the " Sonata."' 

This note I folded close and put in an inside pocket. 

"In answer to this request, when the medium 
returned I got these pertinent words: '/ was not a 
disappointment to myself, but I was at a point where 
nerve force failed me. 9 This was signed 'Ernest,' 
and was accompanied by another sketchy bar of 
music. It all looked like a real attempt to give me 
what I had asked for, and yet it was the kind of 
reply that might have been made by the medium 
had she known the history of my musical friend, 
or had she been able to take it out of my mind." 

"Even that is a violent assumption to me," re- 
marked Miller. 

"So it is to me," I answered. "I can't really 
believe in thought transmission, and yet — I then 
asked for the signature of the staff, and a small ' c' 
was written in the bar above, and another bar was 
added. Now on the slates there came (with every 
evidence of eager haste) intimate questions con- 
cerning Alexander's family: l Is my wife cared for?' 
and the like. To these I replied orally. I must 
tell you that all along the whisper spoke of Alex- 
ander's wife as 'Mary,' which was wrong, although 
it was close to the actual name. Also, after I began 

248 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

to speak of him as 'E. A.' the messages were all 
signed in that manner, all of which would seem to 
argue a little confusion in the psychic's mind. 

"A little later, while I held the slate myself, the 
mysterious 'force' wrote,// thank you for what you 
have done. I have been told my mind is clear,' which 
was particularly full of meaning to me, for the rea- 
son that my friend's mind was clouded toward the 
close of his life." 

"All of which proves nothing," insisted Miller. 
"Your friend, if I conjecture rightly, was a well- 
known man, and the psychic could have read, and 
probably did read, all about his illness in the public 
press." 

"It may be so. About this time I began to hear 
a faint whisper, which seemed to come from a point 
a little to the right of and a foot or two above the 
psychic's lips. This, she informed me, was the 
voice of 'Dr. Cooke/ her guide. I could catch 
only a few of the whispered words, and Mrs. Hartley 
was forced to repeat them. 'Dr. Cooke,' thus in- 
terpreted, said: 'Tour friend Alexander is present, 
and overjoyed to talk with you.' The conversation 
went on with both 'Dr. Cooke' and the psychic 
standing between the alleged spirit and myself; 
but even then I must admit that 'Alexander's' 
queries and answers were to the point. 

"Under what seemed like test conditions I got 
two more bars of music, both much more definitive 
17 249 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

in form than the others; and these, the whisper de- 
clared, were from the third movement of the ' 

Sonata.' This message was accompanied by a 
curious little device like the letter C with a line 
drawn through it, and I said to myself: 'If this 
should prove to be a mark which "Ernest" used in 
signing his manuscript, something like Whistler's 
butterfly, I shall have a fine test of thought trans- 
mission.' 

"I now secured under excellent tests the writing 
of a singular word, which was plainly spelled but 
meant nothing to me. It looked like ' I sing here.' 
In answer to oral questioning, the whisper said that 
these bars of music were part of an unpublished 
manuscript, a fragment, which the composer had 
meant to call 'Isinghere.'" 

"What about the process ?" asked Miller. "Did 
the writing appear to be supernormal ?" 

"Yes, and so did the whispering. I could detect 
no connection between the lips of the psychic and 
the voice. In one way or another I varied the con- 
ditions, so that I was at last quite convinced of the 
psychic's supernormal power; but that was not my 
quest. I was seeking proof of the identity of my 
friend < E. A.' 

"Seeing that the chief means of identification 
might be in the music, I persuaded my friend Blake, 
who is a fairly competent musician, to sit with me 
and decipher the score which 'E. A.' persisted in 

250 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

setting down. I was now eager to secure a com- 
plete phrase of the music. I saw myself establish- 
ing, at the least, the most beautiful case of mind- 
tapping on record. 'If we can secure the score of 
an unpublished manuscript of Alexander's compo- 
sition we shall have worked a miracle,' I said to 
Blake. 

"Our first sitting, which took place in the home 
of a common friend, was mixed as to results; but 
the second, which we held in Mrs. Hartley's study 
one bright morning, was very fruitful. The 'pow- 
ers' started in at once as if to confound us both. 
Blake received a message written on a slate under 
his foot, and I got the name 'Jessie, 1 with the word 
c sister 9 written beneath it; and then suddenly the 
whispers changed in character. The words be- 
came swift, impetuous, imperious. 'Line off all 
the leaves of a slate,' the voice commanded. I un- 
derstood at once, for in the previous sitting 'E. A.' 
had seemingly found it difficult to draw a long 
line. 

"We had brought some silicon slates of the book 
variety, and Blake now proceeded to rule one of 
them with the lines of a musical staff, and on these 
slates, held as before beneath the table, we began 
to get bars of music of a character quite outside 
the knowledge of the psychic and myself; and, 
more remarkable still, the whispers, so the psychic 
informed us, were no longer from 'Dr. Cooke'; 

251 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

*E. A.,' she declared, was there in person and di- 
recting the work. 

"Furthermore, the requests that we now received 
were entirely different in character from * Cooke's' 
impersonal remarks. The whispers were quick 
and masterful, wonderfully like ' Alexander' in con- 
tent. 'He' was humorous; 'he' acknowledged mis- 
takes in the score, calling them 'slips of the pen. 9 
'He' became highly technical in his conversation 
with Blake, talking of musical matters that were 
Greek to me and, I venture to say, Coptic to the 
psychic. ' He' corrected the notations himself, some- 
times when Blake held the slate, sometimes when I 
held it. Part of the time 'he' indicated the correc- 
tions orally. 'He' asked Blake to try the air. 

"At last 'he' broke off, and imperiously said: 
'Take the table to the piano.' This seemed to sur- 
prise the psychic, but she acquiesced, and we moved 
the small stand and our slates down to the little 
parlor; and there, with Blake now holding the 
slate beneath the table and now playing the notes 
upon the piano, the score grew into a weird little 
melody with bass accompaniment, which seemed 
to me at the moment exactly like a message from 
my friend Alexander. The first bar went through 
me like the sound of his voice." 

"Now you are getting into the upper air of spir- 
itualism," exulted Fowler. "You are now receiv- 
ing a message that has dignity and meaning." 

252 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"So it seemed at the moment, both to Blake 
and to myself. The music was manifestly not the 
kind of thing that Mrs. Hartley could conceive. It 
was absolutely not commonplace. It was elliptical, 
touched with technical subtlety, although simple 
in appearance. At last a complete phrase was 
written out and partly harmonized. This, 'E. A/ 
said, was the beginning of a little piece that he had 
intended to call 'Unghere' or 'Hungarie.' Noth- 
ing in all my long experience with psychics ever 
moved me like the first phrase of that sweet, sad 
melody. It seemed like the touch of identification 
I had been seeking." 

"But your friend Blake was a musician/' inter- 
rupted Miller. "And how about your own sub- 
conscious self? You are musical, and your mind 
is filled with your friend Alexander's music." 

"That is true, and I had that reservation all along. 
'E. A.' may have been made up of our combined 
subconscious selves; I admit all that. But no matter; 
it was still very marvellous, even on its material 
side, for some of this music was written in while the 
slates were in Blake's entire control. At times he 
not merely inserted them himself but withdrew them 
— the psychic merely clutched one corner of them. 
Furthermore, throughout all this composition 'Er- 
nest' was master of the situation. 'Dr. Cooke' was 
superseded. There was neither feebleness nor hes- 
itation in the voice. I could now distinguish most 

253 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

of the words, and the dialogue went forward ex- 
actly as if a master musician were dictating to an 
intelligent amanuensis a new and subtle sketch. " 

" Did the medium look at the music ?" asked Miller. 

"Yes, now and then. However, most of the cor- 
rections were put in upside down, as regards her 
position, and during the last sitting she appeared to 
be no more than a mere on-looker. Once as we 
sat holding the slate 'Ernest' whispered to me: 
* Blake is a fine fellow. I met him twice." 

"'Can you tell me where ?' asked Blake. 

"'It was in New York City, 9 was the reply; then, 
after a moment's hesitation: 'It was at dinner — both 
times! 9 'You are right/ said Blake, much im- 
pressed. 'Can you tell me the places ?' ' Once was 
on Fifth Avenue. The other was — / cant tell the 
location exactly; but it was where we went down a 
short flight of steps. 9 'That is correct also,' said 
Blake. 'How many persons were there?' 'Five 9 
'Quite right Can you tell me who they were?' 
' Well, Mary was there, and you, of course ; but I 
cant be sure of the others .' 

"Blake looked at me in astonishment, and our 
minds flashed along the same line. Suppose the 
whisper were only a bit of clever ventriloquism, 
how did the psychic secure the information conveyed 
in this dialogue ? It was given as I write it, with 
only a bit of hesitation once or twice; and yet, it 
may have been merely thought transference." 

254 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Merely thought transference!" exclaimed Miller. 
"I consider thought transference quite as absurd 
as slate-writing. " 

Fowler interposed. "I consider this a simple 
case of spirit communication. You should be grate- 
ful for such a beautiful response." 

"This significant fact is not to be overlooked," 
I resumed: "the psychic secured almost nothing 
else that concerned either Blake's affairs or my 
own. Mainly the whispers had to do with 'E. A.,' 
which, of course, bears out Miller's notion that the 
psychic could deal only with what was public prop- 
erty, and yet this little colloquy about the dinners 
in New York is very convincing so far as mind- 
reading goes. 

"During the third sitting, Blake again being 
present, 'E. A.' took control, as before, from the 
start, and carried forward the recording of the 
musical fragment. ' I want you to fill in the treble, 
Blake,' he said. 'It's nothing but the bare melody 
now.' Blake protested: 'I'm not up to this.' And 
the whisper came swiftly, ''You re too modest, 
Blake'; and a moment later it said: f I hope you re 
not bored, Garland.' If all this was a little play of 
the psychic's devising it was very clever, for after 
a few minutes of close attention to Blake, 'E. A.' 
turned toward me and asked, with anxious haste: 
' Where's Garland?' ' I am here,' I answered. 'Don't 
go away,' he entreated. It was as if for the mo- 

2 55 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

ment he had lost sight of me by reason of fixing his 
attention upon Blake." 

"That is singular!" exclaimed Fowler. "Their 
field of vision is evidently much more restricted than 
we thought." 

"It must be very small indeed, for Blake and I 
sat touching elbows. Two or three times the whis- 
pering voice called, 'Is Garland here ? 9 and once it 
asked: 'What is Garland doing? I see his hand 
moving. 9 I explained that I was making notes. 
'Dont do it! 9 was the agitated request." 

"A very neat little touch," remarked Miller. 

"We worked for a long time over this music, 
directed by the voice, both in the notation and in 
the execution of it. The lines were drawn for both 
bass and treble lengthwise of the slate, and Blake 
found the little piece difficult to play, partly because 
the staves were on different leaves of the slate and 
partly because the notes, especially some of those 
put in at the beginning by the composer, were 
becoming blurred. It was marvellous to see how 
exactly these dim notes were touched up by the mys- 
terious pencil beneath the table. But our progress 
was slow. 'E. A. ? was very patient, though now 
and then he plumply opposed his will to Blake's. 
Once, especially, Blake exclaimed: 'That can't be 
right!' 

"'Yes, it is right! 9 insisted 'E. A.' 

"'But it is very unusual to construct a measure 
256 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

in that way.' For there was a seeming confusion of 
three-four time with six-eight time. 

"'It is a liberty I permit myself, 9 was the swift 
reply. 

"In the last bar, which did not appear to be 
filled satisfactorily, the composer directed the in- 
sertion of a figure 2. This meant, as became clear 
through a subsequent reference to his printed scores, 
the playing of two quarter-notes in the time of three 
eighth notes, but was not understood at the mo- 
ment by Blake. 

"'Never mind' said 'E. A.,' pleasantly, 'I will 
write it differently 9 The figure '2' was cancelled, 
and the measure was completed by a rest. This is 
only one of many astonishing passages in this dia- 
logue. 

"In all this work 'E. A.' carried himself like the 
creative master. He held to a plane apparently 
far above the psychic's musical knowledge, and 
often above that of his amanuensis. He was highly 
technical throughout in both the composition and 
the playing, and Blake followed his will, for the 
most part, as if the whispers came from Alexander 
himself. And yet I repeat the music and all may 
have come from a union of Blake's mind with that 
of the psychic, with now and then a mixture of my 
own subconscious self." 

"What was the psychic doing all this time?" 
asked Miller. 

257 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"She was listening to the voice and repeating the 
words which Blake could not hear. She seemed 
merely the somewhat bored interpreter of words 
which she did not fully understand. It was pre- 
cisely as if she were catching by wireless telephone 
the whispered instructions of my friend 'E. A.' I 
can't believe she consciously deceived us, but it is 
possible that these ventriloquistic voices have be- 
come a subconscious habit. 

"One other very curious event I must note. 
Once, when Blake was asking for a correction, the 
whisper exclaimed: ( I cant see it, Blake!' 

"'Cover it with your hand/ interjected the 'con- 
trol.' Blake did so, and 'E. A.' spoke, gratefully: 
1 see it now. 

"Seeing cannot mean the same with them that it 
does with us," exclaimed Fowler. "You remem- 
ber Crookes put his finger on the print of a news- 
paper behind his back, and the 'spirit' spoke the 
word that was under his finger-tip. They appre- 
hend by means of some form of etheric vibration 
not known to us." 

I resumed: "Let me stop here for a moment to 
emphasize a very curious contradiction. Between 
my first seance with Mrs. Hartley and this, our 
third attempt to secure the music, I had held two 
sittings in the home of a friend. Mrs. Hartley had 
come to the house about ten o'clock in the morning, 
bringing nothing with her except a few tips of soft 

2 5 8 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

slate-pencil. During the sitting I had secured in 
the middle of a manila pad (a pad which the psy- 
chic had never seen and which I had taken from 
my friend's desk) these words: 'Have Schumann. 
— E. A. 9 This writing I had taken to mean that 
* Ernest' wanted to hear some of Schumann's mu- 
sic, and in that understanding I had called Blake 
in to play. This had seemed at the moment per- 
fectly conclusive and entirely satisfactory; yet now, 
in this final sitting, 'E. A.' suddenly reverted to this 
message, and whispered: 'Garland, there is a certain 
etude which I took to Schumann. I want you to 
regain it and take it to Smart. Mary will know 
about it. I meant to take it away, but did I ? I 
was so badly off mentally that I dont know whether 
I did or not. 9 Whereupon Blake said: 'Do you 
mean Schumann the publisher?' 'Yes, 9 'E. A.' 
replied; and I said: 'And you want the manuscript 
recalled from Schumann and given to Smart ?' 
'Yes, 9 was his very definite answer. 

"'Very well, I will attend to it,' I replied. 'What 
do you want done with this fragment, "Isinghere" ?' 
I pursued, 'Shall I publish it?' 'That is what 
it is for, 9 he answered, curtly. 

" ' How many bars are in it ?' asked Blake. 
'Forty?' 'More, 9 returned the whisper. 

"Blake made the mistake of again suggesting 
an answer. 'As many as sixty?' 

"'Yes, sixty or seventy, 9 was the answer, like an 
259 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

echo. Here Blake's thought governed, but it was 
evident that the psychic had no clear conception of 
what this reference to Schumann meant in the first 
instance, for 'E. A.' was unable to complete his 
sentence, which should have read: * Have Schumann 
return a certain etude which I took. — E. A' Fur- 
thermore, the psychic evidently believed in the 
truth of the message or she would not have gone 
into it with such particularity; she would have been 
lacking in caution to have given me such definite 
and detailed information, knowing that it was all 
false. 

"So far as my own mind is concerned, I had no 
knowledge of such a music publisher as Schumann. 
Smart I had met. Blake, however, knew of both 
firms. The entire message and the method of its 
communication were deeply exciting at the time, 
and completed what seemed like a highly intellect- 
ual test of identity, and we both left the house of 
the psychic with a feeling of having been very near 
to our dead friend. 

"'To identify one of these bars of music would 
be a good test,' said Blake, 'but to find that etude 
at Schumann's would be a triumph.' 

"'To find the manuscript fragment would be 
still more convincing,' was my answer. 

" Imagine my disappointment when, in answer to 
my inquiry, Schumann replied that no such etude 
had ever been in his hands, and Alexander's family 

260 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

reported that no fragment called 'Unghere* could 
be found among the composer's manuscripts." 

Fowler shared my regret. "What about the 
other messages ? Were they all disappointing ?" 

"No; some of them were not. The most inti- 
mate were true; and a signature which came on the 
slate under test conditions, and which I valued 
very little at the moment, turned out to be almost 
the exact duplicate of Alexander's signature as he 
used to write it when a youth twenty years ago. 
As a matter of fact, it closely resembled the signature 
appended to a framed letter which used to hang upon 
the wall of his study. But, even so, its reproduc- 
tion under these conditions is sufficiently puzzling." 

"What was Blake's conclusion ? Did be put the 
same value upon it all that you did ?" 

"Yes, I think he was quite as deeply impressed 
as I. He said the music seemed like Alexander's 
music, somehow distorted by the medium through 
which it came. 'It was like seeing Alexander 
through a pane of crinkly glass,' he put it. And 
he added: 'I had the sense of being in long-distance 
contact with the composer himself.' He had no 
doubt of the supernormal means through which our 
writing came, but he remains doubtful of the value 
of the music as evidence of 'Ernest's' return from 
the world of shadows." 

" Have you tried to secure more of the music ?" 
Fowler asked. 

261 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"No, not specifically; but I've had one further 
inconclusive sitting since then with Mrs. Hartley. 
Almost immediately * Ernest' whispered a greeting 
and said: '/ want to go on with that music, Garland. 
I want to put B and D and A into the first bar — - 
it's only a bare sketch as it stands/ 

"To this I replied: 'I can't do it, 'Ernest.' It's 
bevond me. Wait till I can get Blake again.' 

"This ended his attempt, although he was 'ter- 
ribly anxious,' so the psychic said. I am going to 
try for the completion of this score through another 
psychic. If I can get that eighth bar taken up and 
carried on by 'Ernest' through another psychic the 
case will become complicated. 

"I have gone into detail in my account of this 
experiment, for the reason that it illustrates very 
aptly the inextricable tangle of truth and error 
which most 'spirit communications ' present. It 
typifies in little the elusive problem of spirit identi- 
fication which many a veteran investigator is still 
at work upon, after years of study. Maxwell gives 
a case of long-continued unintentional and uncon- 
scious deception of the general kind which went far 
to prevent his acceptance of the spirit hypothesis." 

"I don't think the failure to find the musical 
fragment invalidates this beautiful communication," 
declared Fowler. "You admit that many of the 
messages were to the point, and that some of them 
were very intimate and personal." 

262 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Yes, speaking generally, I would say that 'E. 
A.' might have uttered all the words and dictated all 
the messages except those that related to the publish- 
ing matter; but there is the final test. Schumann 
declares that no such manuscript has ever been in 
his hands." 

"He may be mistaken, or 'E. A' may have mis- 
spoken himself — for, as William James infers, the 
spirits find themselves tremendously hampered in 
their attempts to manifest themselves. Further- 
more, you say you could not hear all that 'E. A.' 
spoke — you or the psychic may have misunderstood 
him. In any case, it all seems to me a fine attempt 
at identification. " 

" I wish I could put the same value on it now that 
I did when Blake played the first bar of that thrilling 
little melody; but I can't. As it recedes it loses its 
power over me." 

"What did Alexander's family think of the mu- 
sic ?" 

" They thought it more like a Cheyenne or Oma- 
ha love-song than like a melody of ' Ernest's' own 
composition." 

" But that only adds to the mystery of the mental 
process," objected Miller, "That supposes it to 
have come out of your mind." 

"I can't believe that I had any hand in the mu- 
sical part of it, and I can't persuade myself that my 
dead friend was present." 

263 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"Suppose you had been able to find that musical 
fragment, would it have converted you ?" This 
was Miller's challenge. 

"No, for even then some living person might 
have known of it — must have known of it; and if 
a knowledge of it lay in some other mind, no mat- 
ter where and no matter how deeply buried in the 
subconscious, that knowledge, according to Myers 
and Hudson, would have been accessible to the su- 
pernormal perception of the psychic." 

Fowler interrogated me: "But suppose a phan- 
tom form resembling 'E. A,' had spoken these things 
to you face to face — what then ?" 

" I would not have believed, even then." 

"Why?" 

"Well, for one reason, belief is not a matter of 
the will; it is not even dependent upon evidence." 

Miller interrupted me. "I am interested in the 
writing. How do you account for the writing ? 
As I understand it, the psychic did not, in some 
instances, touch the slate while the writing was go- 
ing on. Are you sure of Blake ?" 

" Blake is as much to be trusted as I am. No, I 
am forced to a practical acceptance of the theory 
of the fluidic arm, and yet this is a most astound- 
ing admission. We must suppose that the psychic 
was able to read our minds and write down our 
mingled and confused musical conceptions by means 
of a supernumerary hand. It happens that I have 

264 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

since seen these etheric hands in action, which 
makes it easier for me to conceive of such a process. 
I have seen them dart forth from another medium 
precisely as described by Scarpa. I have seen them 
lift a glass of water, and I have had them touch my 
knees beneath a table while slate-writing was going 
on — so that, given the power to read my mind, 
there is nothing impossible (having regard to Bot- 
tazzi's definite experiments) in the idea of the etheric 
hand's setting down the music and reproducing the 
signature of 'E. A.' In fact, at a recent sitting in 
a private house with a young male psychic, we had 
this precise feat performed. Said the psychic to 
our host, Dr. Towne, 'Think hard of a signature 
that is very familiar to you/ and Dr. Towne fixed 
his mind upon the signature of his brother, and 
immediately, while the young man's material hands 
were controlled, his etheric hand seized a pencil in 
the middle of the table and reproduced the signature." 

"Could you see this hand?" Miller asked. 

"Not in this case; but at a sitting which followed 
this, during such time as I sat beside the psychic 
and controlled one hand, I plainly saw the super- 
numerary arm and hand dart forth and seize a pen- 
cil. I saw a hand very plainly cross my knee and 
grasp me by the forearm. All of this has its bear- 
ing upon this very curious phenomenon of the re- 
production of 'E. A's.' youthful signature, which 
remained very puzzling to us all." 
18 265 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"But did you not say that 'E. A.' at times repre- 
sented an opposing will ?" questioned Fowler — "that 
he disputed certain passages with Blake, and that 
he finally carried his point in opposition to ever)' 
mind in the circle ?" 

"Yes, that happened several times, and was all 
very convincing at the time. And yet this oppo- 
sition may have been more apparent than real. It 
may have concerned our conscious wills only; our 
subconscious selves may have been in accord, work- 
ing together as one." 

Fowler was a bit irritated. "If you are disposed 
to make the subconscious will all-powerful and om- 
niscient, nothing can be proved. It seems to me 
an evasion. However, let me ask how you would 
explain away a spirit form carrying the voice, the 
features, and the musical genius of 'E. A/ ?" 

"Well, there is the teleplastic theory of Albert 
de Rochas. He claims to have been able not merely 
to cause a hypnotized subject to exteriorize her astral 
self, but to mould this vapory substance as a sculp- 
tor models wax. So I can imagine that a momen- 
tary radiant apparition might have been created in 
the image of my sister or * David' or 'E. A.' s 

"To my thinking, that is more complicated and 
incredible than the spirit hypothesis," objected 
Fowler. 

"Nothing can be more incredible to me than the 
spirit hypothesis," I replied. "But, then, every- 

266 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

thing is incredible in the last analysis. I am the 
more disposed to believe in the teleplastic theory, 
for the reason that I have recently had an oppor- 
tunity to witness a particularly incredible thing: 
the materialization of a complete human form out- 
side the cabinet and beside the psychic — a phenom- 
enon which has a special bearing upon the matter 
of identity which we are discussing. The sitting 
took place in a small private house here in the city. 
The psychic in the case was a young business man 
who is careful not to advertise his power. For four 
years he has been holding secret developing circles 
whereto a few of his friends only are invited. I 
was present last Sunday, and shared in the marvels. 
The place of the seance was the parlor of his apart- 
ment, his young wife and little daughter being pres- 
ent. There was, in addition, an elderly lady, mother- 
in-law of the psychic, and a Polish student whom I 
will call Jacob. I am quite sure that no one else 
entered or left the room during the evening. Mrs. 
Pratt, the mother-in-law, occupied a seat between 
me and Jacob. The little girl sat at the window, 
and was under my eye all the time. The wife spent 
most of the evening at the piano on my right. The 
room was fairly dark, though the light of a far-away 
street lamp shone in at the window. 

"The psychic retired into a little alcove bedroom, 
which served as cabinet, and the curtain had hardly 
fallen between him and our group when the spirit 

267 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

voices began. The first one to speak was 'Evan/ 
the ' guide/ and I remarked that his voice was pre- 
cisely like a falsetto disguise of the psychic's own. 

"Soon 'Evan* and other spirits appeared at the 
opening of the curtain. The wife called them each 
by name, but I could see only certain curious fluctu- 
ating, cloud-like forms, like puffs of fire-lit steam. 
The effect was not that of illuminated gauze, but 
more like illuminated vapor. At length came one 
that spoke in a deep voice, using a foreign language. 
Jacob, the young Pole, sprang up in joyous excite- 
ment, saying that he had sat many times in this 
little circle, but that this was the first time a spirit 
had spoken to him in his own tongue. As they 
conversed together, I detected a close similarity of 
accent and of tone in their speech. It certainly 
sounded like the Polish language, but I could not 
rid myself of the impression that the Pole was talk- 
ing to himself." 

"What do you mean by that ?" 

"I mean that the accent, inflection, and quality 
of the ghosts voice were identical with that of the 
living man, and this became still more striking when, 
a little later, Jacob returned to his seat, and the 
'Count/ his visitor, called for the Polish national 
hymn. Jacob then sang, and the phantom sang 
with him. Now this seemed like a clear case of 
identification, and was perfectly satisfactory to 
Jacob, but I had observed this fact: the Pole was 

268 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

an indifferent singer — having hard work to keep 
the key — and the ' Count' was troubled in the same 
way. His deep, almost toneless, singing struck me 
as a dead, flat, wooden echo of Jacob's voice. In 
short, it was as if the psychic had built up a per- 
sonality partly out of himself, but mainly out of his 
Polish sitter, and as if this etheric duplication were 
singing in unison with its progenitor." 

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Fowler. 

"Did he manufacture a double out of you?" 
queried Miller. 

"No one spoke to me from the shadow, except 
the * guide/ although I was hoping for some new word 
from ' Ernest,' and kept him uppermost in my mind. 
A form came out into the centre of the room, which 
the wife said was ' Evan,' and requested me to shake 
his hand. This I did. The hand felt as if it were 
covered with some gauzy veiling. My belief is that 
it was the psychic himself who stood before me, 
probably in trance. I could see nothing, however. 
I do not remember that I could detect any shadow 
even; but the hand was real, and the voice and 
manner of speech were precisely those of the psychic 
himself." 

"I repeat that this does not necessarily imply 
fraud, for the mind and vocal organs of the psychic 
are often used in that way," Fowler argued. 

"I grant that. Up to this point I had been able 
to see nothing but dim outlines. But toward the 

269 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

end of the evening the psychic advanced from the 
cabinet and in a dazed way ordered the lamp to be 

lit. This was done. He then asked that it he turn- 
ed low. This was also done. Thereupon, direct- 
ins his gaze toward the curtain, he called twice in a 
rone of command, ' Come out! 3 

"I could place every one in the room at the mo- 
ment. I could see the psychic distinctly, I could 
discern the color ot his coat and the expression of 
his face He stood at least six feet from the open- 
ing in the curtain. At his second cry, in which I 
detected a note o\ entreaty, I saw a luminous form, 
taller than himself, suddenly appear before the 
curtain and stand bowing in silence. I could per- 
ceive neither face, eyes, nor feet, but I could make 
out the arms under the shining robe, the shape o{ 
the head and the shoulders, and as he bowed I could 
see the bending oi his neck. It certainly was not a 
clothes-horse. The covering was not so much a 
robe as a swathing, and we had time to discuss it 
briefly. 

"However, my eyes were mainly busy with the 
psychic, whose actions impressed me deeply. He 
had the air o\ an anxious man undergoing a dan- 
gerous ordeal. His right hand was stretched stifHy 
toward the phantom, his left was held near his heart; 
his knees seemed to tremble, and his body appeared 
to be irresistibly drawn toward the cabinet. Slow- 
ly, watchfully, fearfully, he approached the phan- 

270 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

torn. The figure turned toward him, and a mo- 
ment later they met — they clung together, they ap- 
peared to coalesce, and the psychic fell through the 
curtain to the floor of the cabinet, like a man smitten 
with death." 

"What do you wish to imply?" asked Miller. 
"Do you mean that the man and the ghost were 
united in some way ?" 

"Precisely so. The 'spirit' seemed drawn by 
some magnetic force toward the psychic, and the 
psychic seemed under an immense strain to keep 
the apparition exterior to himself. When they met 
the spectre vanished, and the psychic's fall seemed 
inevitable — a collapse from utter exhaustion. I was 
at the moment convinced that I had seen a vapor- 
ous entity born of the medium. It seemed a clear 
case of projection of the astral body. In the pause 
which followed the psychic's fall the young wife 
turned to me and said: 'Sometimes, if my husband 
does not reach the spirit form in time, he falls out- 
side the curtain.' She did not seem especially 
alarmed. 

"The young psychic himself, however, told me 
afterward that he was undergoing a tremendous 
strain as he stood there commanding the spirit to 
appear. 'I had a fierce pain in the centre of my 
forehead,' he said. 'I couldn't get my breath. I 
felt as if all my substance, my strength, was being 
drawn out of me. My legs seemed about to give 

271 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

way. It is always hard to produce a form so far 
away from me when I am on the outside of the 
cabinet in the light. The greater the distance, the 
greater the strain/ I asked him what happened 
when he and the form rushed together, and he an- 
swered: 'As soon as I touched it, it re-entered my 
body/ " 1 

" I wonder why the spirits are always clothed in 
that luminous gauze ?" queried Miller. 

"They are not," replied Fowler. "More often 
they come in the clothing which was their habitual 
wear." 

" I asked this young psychic if drapery were used 
out of respect to us mortals, and he replied: 'No; 
the forms are swathed not from sense of propriety 
so much as to protect the body, which is often in- 
complete at the extremities.' The wife and Jacob 
told me that at one of their meetings a naked Her- 
cules suddenly appeared before the curtain. The 
Pole declared: 'He was of giant size and strength. 
I felt of his muscles (he was clothed only in a loin- 

1 Since this conversation I have had a letter from another 
well-authenticated psychic, a man making his living by honest 
labor as a carpenter, who gives very definitely his experience 
on emitting an etheric double. He says: "One evening, while 
sitting at the table, I began to feel as if I were swelling up. 
My thumb felt as big as my arm, and my arm as big as my log. 
While I was perfectly aware that I was at the dinner-table. I 
also felt myself in the hall trying to enter the dining-room. I 
found the knob, I "opened the door. The others saw me tra- 
verse the room toward myself. My dual body came close beside 
me and vanished with a snap." 

272 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

cloth), and I closely studied his tremendous arms 
and shoulders. The medium, as you know, is a 
small, thin man. We called this figure "the man 
from Mars." He was at least six feet high, and 
strong as a lion. He rushed back into the cabinet, 
and came out holding the medium above his head 
on his upraised palms. It was very wonderful.' ' 

"You didn't see anything like that, did you ?" 
asked Miller. 

"No," I replied; "but I did see the development 
of a figure apparently from the floor between me and 
the curtain of the cabinet. My attention was called 
to something wavering, shimmering, and fluctuating 
about a foot above the carpet. It was neither steam 
nor flame. It seemed compounded of both lumi- 
nous vapor and puffing clouds of drapery. It rose 
and fell in quivering impulses, expanding and con- 
tracting, but continuing to grow until at last it tow- 
ered to the height of a tall man, and I could dimly 
discern, through dark draperies edged with light, 
a man's figure. 

"'This,' the young wife said, 'is Judge White, 
the grandfather of the psychic,' and she conversed 
with him, but only for a few moments. He soon 
dwindled and faded and melted away in the same 
fashion as he had come, recalling to my mind 
Richet's description of the birth and disappearance 
of 'B. B.,' in Algiers. I know this sounds like the 
veriest dreaming, but you must remember that ma- 

V3 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

terializations much more wonderful have been seen 
and analyzed in the clinical laboratories of Turin 
and Naples. Morselli, Bottazzi, Lombroso, Porro, 
and Foa have been confronted by similar appari- 
tions. They saw 'sinister' faces, and were repelled 
by ' Satanic hands agile and prompt' in cabinets of 
their own construction, surrounded by their own 
registering machinery, and Richet photographed 
just such figures as this I have described. 

"The question with me is not, Do these forms 
exist ? but, What produces them ? I am describing 
this sitting to explain what I mean by the ideoplastic 
or teleplastic theory. If, for example, this psychic 
had known me well enough to have had a very 
definite picture of 'E. A.,' he might have been able 
to model from the mind-stuff that he or the circle 
had thrown off, a luminous image of my friend, 
and, aided by my subconscious self, might have 
united the presence and the musical thought of 
Ernest Alexander." 

"It won't do!" exclaimed Miller. "It's all too 
destructive, too preposterous!" 

"I insist that the spirit hypothesis is simpler," 
repeated Fowler. 

"It isn't a question of simplicity," I retorted. 
"It's a question of fact. If the observations of 
scientific experimentalists are of any value, the 
teleplastic theory is on the point of winning accep- 
tance." 

274 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I will not admit that," rejoined Fowler. "For, 
even if you throw out all the enormous mass of evi- 
dence accumulated by spiritistic investigators, you 
still have the conversion of Wallace, Lodge, and 
Lombroso, not to speak of De Vesme, Venzano, and 
other well-known men of science, to account for. 
Even Crookes himself admits that nothing but some 
form of spirit hypothesis is capable of explaining all 
the phenomena; and in a recent issue of the Annals 
of Psychic Science Lombroso writes a paper making 
several very strong points against the biologic theory. 
One of these is the simultaneous occurrence of phe- 
nomena. 'Can the subconscious self act in several 
places at once ?' he asks. A second objection lies 
in the fact that movements occur in opposition to 
the will of the psychic — as, for example, when Eu- 
sapia was transported in her chair. 'Can a man 
lift himself by his boot-straps ?' is the question. 
'The centre of gravity of a body cannot be altered 
in space unless acted upon by an external force. 
Therefore, the phenomena of levitation cannot be 
considered to be produced by energy emanating 
from the medium.' " 

"I don't think that follows," I argued. "Force 
may be exerted unconsciously and invisibly. Be- 
cause the psychic does not consciously will to do a 
certain thing is no proof that the action does not 
originate in the deeps of her personality. We know 
very little of this obscure region of our minds." 

275 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Fowler was ready with his answer: "But let us 
take the case that Lombroso cites of the beautiful 
woman spirit whose hand twice dashed the photo- 
graphic plates from the grasp of those who wished 
to secure her picture. Here was plainly an oppos- 
ing will, for the psychic was lending herself to the 
experiment, and the spectators were eager for its 
success. Notwithstanding which co-operation this 
phantom bitterly opposed the wishes of every one 
present, and it was afterward learned that there was 
a special reason why she did not wish to leave posi- 
tive proofs of her identity. 'It is evident, there- 
fore,' concludes Lombroso, 'that a third will can in- 
tervene in spiritistic phenomena.' 

" Furthermore, Dr. Venzano, as well as De Vesme, 
have taken up the same body of facts upon which 
Foa and Morselli base their theory, and arrive at a 
totally different conclusion. They call attention 
to a dozen events that can be explained only on 
the theory of discarnate intelligences. Venzano ob- 
served that the forms occurred in several places at 
once, that they appeared in many shapes and many 
guises. Some were like children, some had curly 
hair, some had beards. In one case identification 
was made by introducing the finger of one of the 
sitters within the phantom mouth to prove the loss 
of a molar tooth. Sometimes the hair of these 
heads was plaited like that of a girl. Some of the 
hands were large and black, others fair and pink— 

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THE SHADOW WORLD 

like a child's. In short, he argues that the medium 
could not have determined the size, shape, or color 
of the phantoms." 

"All that does not really militate against the 
ideoplastic theory," I retorted. "It is as easy to 
produce a phantom with hair plaited as it is to pro- 
duce one with hair in curls. If it is a case of the 
modelling of the etheric vapor by the mind of the 
psychic, these differences would be produced nat- 
urally enough. The forcible handling of the me- 
dium by the invisible ones is a much more difficult 
thing for me to explain, for to imagine the psychic 
emitting a form of force which afterward proceeds 
to raise the psychic herself against her will — as Mrs. 
Smiley testifies happened again and again in her 
youth — is to do violence to all that we know of nat- 
ural law. And yet it may be that the etheric double 
is able to take on part of the forces resident in the 
circle of sitters, and so become immensely more 
potent than the psychic himself, as in the case of 
the 'Man from Mars' — the Hercules I have just 
been telling you about. Then, as to the content of 
these messages, they may be impulses, hints, frag- 
ments of sentences caught from the air as one wire- 
less operator intercepts communications meant for 
other stations than his own. So that my interview 
with 'E. A.' may have been a compounding of 
the psychic, Blake, and myself, and fugitive natures 
afloat in the ether. In fact, I am not as near a be- 

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THE SHADOW WORLD 

lief in the return of the dead as I was when I began 
this last series of experiments. These Italian scien- 
tific observers, I confess, have profoundly affected 
my thought." 

"Your idea is, then," said Miller, "that these ap- 
paritions are emanations of the medium's physical 
substance, moulded by his will and colored by the 
mind of his sitters ?" 

"That is the up-to-date theory, and everything 
that I have experienced seems capable of a biologic 
interpretation against it." 

Fowler hastened to weaken the force of this state- 
ment. "Spiritists all admit that the forms of spirits 
are made up — partly, at least — of the psychic's 
material self, but that does not prove that the mind 
of the ghost is not a separate entity from that of the 
psychic. I grant that the only difference between 
the psycho-dynamic theory and the spiritualistic the- 
ory lies in the question of the origin of the intel- 
ligences that direct the manifestation. Foa would 
say they spring from the subconscious self of the 
psychic. We say they come from the spirit world, 
and there we stand." 

Miller's words were keen and without emotion. 
"Until all phenomena are explained there will be 
obscure happenings and things to be explained by 
some one who can, but it is no final explanation to 
say 'a man did it' or ' an intelligence did it.' I have 
often been told that things cannot move in certain 

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THE SHADOW WORLD 

ways or certain things cannot be done except by 
intelligent action or guidance, but it may be re- 
membered that Kepler thought guiding spirits were 
needful for making the planets move in their ellip- 
tical orbits." 

"Your scientists are feeding millions of people 
stones," exclaimed Fowler. "They ask for bread, 
and you give them slices of granite." 

"Better granite than slime," said Miller. "I 
am with the biologists in this campaign. Let us 
have the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may 
be. If these phenomena exist, they are in the do- 
main of natural law and can be weighed and meas- 
ured. If they are imaginary, they should be swept 
away, like other dreams of superstition and igno- 
rance." 

Fowler was not to be silenced. "I predict that 
you and your like will yet be forced, like Lombroso, 
to take your place with Aksakof, Lodge, Wallace, 
Du Prel, and Crookes, who have come to admit the 
intervention of discarnate intelligences. Lombroso 
says, 'We find, as I already foresaw some years ago, 
that these materialized bodies belong to the radiant 
state of matter, which has now a sure foothold in 
science. This is the only hypothesis that can recon- 
cile the ancient and universal belief in the persist- 
ence of some manifestation of life after death with 
the results of science.' He adds: ' These beings, or 
remnants of beings, would not be able to obtain 

279 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

complete consistency to incarnate themselves, if they 
did not temporarily borrow a part of the medium. 
But to borrow force from the medium is not the 
same thing as to be identical with the medium.' ' 

"Well," said I, "of this I am certain: we cannot 
afford to ignore such experiments as those of Mor- 
selli and Bottazzi. I am aware that many investi- 
gators discountenance such experiments, but I be- 
lieve with Venzano that the physical phenomena of 
mediumship cannot be, and ought not to be, con- 
sidered trivial. It was the spasmodic movement 
of a decapitated frog that resulted in the discovery 
of the Voltaic Pile. Furthermore, I intend to try 
every other conceivable hypothesis before accepting 
that of the spiritists. " 

"What is your reason for that?" asked Fowler. 

"Because I am a scientist in my sympathies. I 
believe in the methods of the chemist and the elec- 
trician. I prefer the experimenter to the theorist. 
I like the calm, clear, concise statements of these 
European savans, who approach the subject, not 
as bereaved persons, but as biologists. I am ready 
to go wherever science leads, and I should be very 
glad to know that our life here is but a link in the 
chain of existence. Others may have more con- 
vincing knowledge than I, but at this present mo- 
ment the weight of evidence seems to me to be on 
the side of the theorv that mediumship is, after all, 
a question of unexplored human biology." 

280 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

"I don't see it that way," rejoined Fowler, calm- 
ly. "Suppose your biologists prove that the psy- 
chic can put forth a supernumerary arm, or main- 
tain, for a short time, a complete double of herself. 
Would that necessarily make the spiritist theory 
untenable ? Is it not fair to conclude that if the 
soul or 'astral' or 'etheric double' can act outside 
the living body, it can live and think and manifest 
after the dissolution of its material shell ? Does not 
the experimental work of Bottazzi, Morselli, and De 
Rochas all make for a spiritual interpretation of life 
rather than for the position of the materialist ? I 
consider that they have strengthened rather than 
weakened the mystic side of the universe. They 
are bringing the wonder of the world back to the 
positivist. Let them go on. They will yet demon- 
strate, in spite of themselves, the immortality of the 
soul." 

"I hope they will," I replied. "It would be glo- 
rious at this time, when tradition begins to fail of 
power, to have a demonstration of immortality 
come through the methods of experimental science. 
Certainly I would welcome a physical proof 
that my mother still thinks and lives, and that 
Ernest and other of my dearest friends are at work 
on other planes and surrounded by other conditions, 
no matter how different from the conventional idea 
of paradise these environments might be; but the 
proof must be ample and very definite." 
19 281 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

Miller put in a last word of warning: "Because 
a phenomenon has not been explained, and no one 
knows how to explain it, is no reason for supposing 
there is anything extraphysical about it. No one 
has explained the first cause of the development of 
an embryo. No one knows what goes on in an 
active nerve, or why atoms are selective in their 
associates. Ignorance is not a proper basis for 
speculation, and if one must have a theory, let it 
be one having some obvious continuity with our 
best physical knowledge." 

And at that point our argument rested. We 
separated, and each went his way, to be met by 
questions of business and politics, and to be once 
more blended to the all-enveloping mystery of life. 



ADDENDUM 

A CORROBORATIVE AND TECHNICAL ACCOUNT OF 
PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA, INVOLVING THE PRO- 
DUCTION OF A MUSICAL SCORE ON A SLATE, 
SECURED BY " BLAKE." ' 

THIS record was secured during three sittings, 
which took place on the forenoon and afternoon 
of Friday, March 13th, and on the forenoon of Sat- 
urday, March 14, 1908. These sittings were held 
in a dwelling-house on a quiet street of ordinary 
character. They began in a second-story front room, 
and were transferred to a parlor just below, where 
there was a piano. The room, in either case, was 
fairly light ; now and then the window - shades 
were lowered, but reading and writing were easy 
at all times. Three persons were present: the psy- 
chic, a robust, alert, intelligent woman of thirty- 
five; Hamlin Garland; and the writer, who com- 
bined the functions of amanuensis and editor. 

1 " Blake " is my friend Henry B. Fuller, who had never be- 
fore sat for psychic phenomena, and to whom I turned for 
help in securing the musical notation. 

283 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

The psychic was not in a trance, and stated that 
she had never gone into one. She conversed 
throughout in ordinary voice and manner, save 
when, with a certain emphasis, she undertook to 
hasten the pace of her lagging "controls." The 
three sittings were attended by little noise, pound- 
ing, or violence; there was no breaking or crump- 
ling up of slates, as had been the case during an 
earlier sitting on Thursday. 

The psychic's principal " control " — to be known 
here as "Dr. Cooke" — spoke in whispers, and his 
words were repeated aloud by the psychic herself. 
These whisperings were only occasionally audible 
to the writer, but they were plainly heard by Mr. 
Garland. It may be added that on at least two 
occasions, however, the writer heard and under- 
stood replies which the psychic declared had not 
been audible to her. During the latter portion of 
these sittings, especially that of Saturday, the "con- 
trol" seemed to withdraw altogether, and for two 
or three hours the circle was in apparent commu- 
nication — direct, rapid, uninterrupted — with an in- 
telligence that may conveniently be termed the 
" Composer." 

The paraphernalia for these sittings comprised 
the following: 

I. A small, light, walnut centre-table, which Mr. 
Garland himself had assisted in repairing before 
the proceedings began. 

284 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

2. A silicon book-slate, eight inches by five inches. 
There were six pages — the insides of the covers and 
a double leaf. These leaves lay close and flat, like 
those of a book. 

3. A few bits of slate-pencil, from one-quarter of 
an inch to three-eighths of an inch in length; also 
a longer slate-pencil used by the writer. 

4. A small writing-pad and lead-pencil, for gen- 
eral memoranda and notations. 

5. Certain fruits and flowers, such as roses, 
sweet-peas, pineapples, and grape-fruit. These met 
the psychic's needs or fancies, and were brought 
into close relation with pad or slate- when the 
"forces" seemed inclined to weaken. 

6. The piano. 

Shortly after the opening of the Friday-morning 
sitting the Composer requested that the whole slate 
be ruled with staves for writing music. Through- 
out the preceding Wednesday and Thursday at- 
tempts at the writing of music had been of constant 
occurrence; they had come on slates, on writing- 
pads, and on the leaves of closed books. These 
bits of musical notation had been very fragmentary 
and obscure; often they had consisted of less than 
half a dozen notes placed upon staves consisting 
of but three or four lines, instead of five. The 
most successful of these earlier efforts had been 
produced on a double school-slate, with a wooden, 
list-bound frame: two measures on a treble staff 

285 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

had been sprinkled with vague indications of mu- 
sical script. No attempts had yet been made to 
bring even the best of these various writings to 
order and intelligibility. We were soon to learn 
that a scrap of music set down within three or four 
minutes w^as to require as many hours for revision, 
emendation, elucidation — for editing, in brief. It 
is but fair, however, to state that some of this time 
was taken up by the registering of irrelevant mes- 
sages from other quarters and by digressions tow- 
ard the Composer's own private concerns. 

The staff drawn on the wooden-framed slate had 
been ruled crosswise. The Composer now directed 
that the new staves to be drawn on the silicon slate 
should run lengthwise and should cover every page 
of it. This w T as done by the editor. Provision 
was asked for seven measures, to which an eighth 
was added later. 

During the three minutes or so required for writ- 
ing on the six pages of the slate, the position of the 
slate, in reference to the editor, was as follows: 
After considerable moving about beneath the top 
of the table, during which time it was principally 
in the hands of the psychic, it approached the writer 
and remained with him. The under cover of the 
slate (with a bit of slate-pencil tightly enclosed) 
rested on his knee; the upper cover was pressed 
against the frame of the table. The editor's thumb 
rested rather lightly on the middle of the nearer 

286 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

half of the upper cover, and his fingers assisted in 
supporting the nearer half of the under cover. The 
psychic herself had surrendered the control of the 
slate to the editor, and could have had no contact 
with it beyond touching the edge farthest from him. 
On the second day, Saturday, during which the 
bass for the last four measures was produced, the 
slate was in the exclusive control of the editor, 
the psychic not touching it at all. The progress 
of the musical writing was both felt and heard; it 
was a combination of light and rapid scratching, 
pecking, and twitching, with an occasional slight 
waving motion up and down. 

The score, as first revealed, consisted of open- 
headed notes with curved stems. They gave no 
indications of varying values; it was impossible to 
distinguish quarter-notes from eighth-notes, six- 
teenth-notes, or grace-notes; and no rests were set 
down. The notes were placed but approximately 
as regarded lines and spaces. No stems, save in 
one or two instances, united the chords, the notes 
of which were written more or less above one an- 
other, yet detached. A few unsatisfactory attempts 
were made by the Composer to place the bars. 
These were mostly put in by the editor — some- 
times by the direction or with the acquiescence of 
the Composer — and, when they were drawn in ad- 
vance of the writing, their presence was always 
properly observed. 

287 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

As the revision became more close and careful, 
the Composer directed that the work be continued 
down-stairs beside the piano. Here every bar of 
the treble was played separately as soon as edited, 
to be pronounced satisfactory by the Composer, 
or to be modified under his direction. The treble, 
on its completion — eight measures — was then played 
over in its entirety and pronounced by the Com- 
poser to be correct. (He made one or two further 
emendations, however, on the following day.) The 
eight bars of the bass were gone over in the same 
fashion. The attempt to play the entire compo- 
sition, treble and bass, was not satisfactory, partly 
owing to mechanical difficulties occasioned by the 
distribution of the matter on the slate and the mul- 
tiplicity of corrections, and partly from lack of 
skill in the performer. However, two or three 
very brief passages were given by both hands and 
pronounced correct by the Composer, who showed 
surprise that anything so "simple" — as he char- 
acterized it — should give so much trouble. In one 
instance he noted that, while the two parts, treble 
and bass, were correct separately, they were not 
played in correct time together. The Composer, 
throughout, was most patient, persevering, courte- 
ous, and encouraging, though toward the end — - 
in the closing measures of the bass — he showed 
some confusion and uncertainty. "Wait a mo- 
ment" he would say; and once the whisper asked 

288 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

that, as an aid to sight, the editor's hand be spread 
over that leaf of the slate on which work was in 
progress. The Composer had thought, earlier — ■ 
and so said — that a trained musician could easily 
supply the bass from the melody. His amanuensis 
was obliged to acknowledge frankly an inability 
to cope successfully with so complicated and unusual 
a matter. The psychic herself, though expressing 
a fondness for the opera, disclaimed any knowledge 
of musical notation, and added that never before 
had she performed such a function as at present. 

As the work of correction progressed, the Com- 
poser several times asked for opportunity to make 
the changes himself; whereupon the pencil-tip 
would be enclosed in the slate and satisfactory 
emendations be forthcoming. In cases where cor- 
rections were made by the writer, the Composer 
often watched the progress of the slate-pencil (a 
longer one than that which was used between the 
leaves) and gave directions: "Not there"; "Fes, 
here" and the like; and he would often acknowledge 
a correction with a "Thank you" or meet a sug- 
gestion with a "Yes, if you please" On these 
occasions the slate was some four feet distant from 
the psychic, and practically out of her sight. 

Repeated attempts were made on both sides to 
get down the name of the composition. Various 
related versions of the word appeared, none of 
them quite satisfactory. The Composer seemed 

289 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

to acquiesce in our attempts to relate his title to 
different Slavic and Italian words for "gypsy," but 
no importance can be attached, of course, to such 
a, piece of direct suggestion. 

The final version of this brief but laborious 
score has been preserved, and all the stages in its 
progress have been abundantly annotated. To 
follow it through in detail, however, would be but 
weariness. All the salient points in its production 
fall under one of three heads. There are, first, 
the passages that seem to have been produced in 
co-operation with the sitters. There are, second, 
the passages that seem to have been produced in 
independence of the sitters. And there are, third, 
the passages that seem to have been produced in 
direct opposition to the sitters. Examples of all 
three classes follow; perhaps only those of the third 
and last class are really important. 

I. The Composer in Co-operation. The piece, 
in three sharps, opened on the tonic, yet the very 
first note in the bass was a G-sharp. The following 
colloquy ensued: Editor: "Does the piece begin 
with the tonic chord of A?" Composer: "Yes" 
Editor: "Is the G-sharp, then, to be regarded 
as a suspension ?" Composer: "Of course. That 
makes it right. How could it be correct other- 
wise f 

Another example. In the second bar a note 
which the editor had taken for an eighth-note was 

290 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

explained by the Composer as being a grace-note. 
The editor pointed out that this left only five 
eighth-notes to fill a six-eight measure. The Com- 
poser directed the insertion of an eighth-rest at the 
beginning of the bar. 

In the fourth bar there was a partial chord, E-B 
— a fifth. The Composer's attention was drawn 
to this blemish. He requested the insertion of a 
G-sharp between, thus completing his triad. 

But the above examples, and others which might 
be related, are not without resemblances to thought 
transference. 

2. The Composer in Independence. Under this 
head may be placed his various instructions rela- 
tive to tempo, expression, and the like. The sig- 
nature, three sharps, was set down by the editor, 
as the result of an answer to his inquiry. But the 
time — six-eight — was written in (on the editor's 
request) by the Composer himself. It was a dis- 
tinct and separate effort, for which the pencil was 
put in the slate and the slate placed beneath the 
table. The time was set down before the notes 
themselves were secured. The six-eight sign was 
clearly and neatly written on the proper staff, in 
correct relation to the G-clef and to the signature; 
and the two figures were also in correct relation to 
each other. The word "Moderato" was written 
in by the Composer's direction, without any re- 
quest from the editor. Later, the words "With 

291 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

feeling'' and the mark of expression "pp," were 
obtained in the same way. Ties, grace-notes, and 
staccato-marks were insisted upon, here and there, 
with great vigor and earnestness. 

Two further examples of the Composer's inde- 
pendence will perhaps suffice. In the sixth measure 
there was a run of three eighth-notes in the treble, 
exactly above a corresponding run of three eighth- 
notes in the bass. In making his revision the 
Composer directed that each of these three pairs 
of notes should be joined by stems. This took the 
treble notes down to the bass, and left the last half 
of the treble bar empty — a fact unnoticed by the 
editor and beyond the purview of the psychic. 
The Composer, however, observed the hiatus, and 
directed the insertion of two rests. 

One other instance: The bar at the end of the 
first measure, as originally drawn by the Com- 
poser, cut off two notes on leger - lines and gave 
them to the succeeding measure. Another little 
colloquy: Editor: "Shall I draw the bar where it 
belongs?" Composer: "Yes, if you please." Edi- 
tor: "Here?" Composer: "No." Editor: "There ?" 
Composer: "Yes. Thank you." 

3. The Composer in Opposition. Numerous 
interesting cases of cross-purposes between the 
Composer and the circle developed during these 
two days. A number of salient examples follow: 

On the first opening of the slate, the seventh 
292 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

measure of the treble contained but two notes, 
which the Composer presently declared to be quar- 
ter-notes. This left the first third of the measure 
vacant; and the Composer, interrogated, directed 
the insertion of a quarter-rest. The editor objected 
that this gave the measure a three-quarter look, 
instead of the proper six-eighth look. " That is a 
liberty I take," came the answer, like a flash. 

At one stage the Composer requested that a cer- 
tain note should have a "dot" added. The edi- 
tor placed the dot to the right of the note, thus 
lengthening its value by one-half. "No, no," ob- 
jected the Composer; "put it on top, above the 
staff" His intention had been, once more, to make 
a note "staccato," and he had been misunderstood. 

The editor, in setting down the signature of 
sharps on the second page of the slate, intentionally 
placed the last sharp a third below its proper posi- 
tion. He was at once brought to book by "Dr. 
Cooke," the " control." " We are being fair by you, 
and you must be fair by us." 

In the eighth and last measure, which did not 
appear to be satisfactorily completed, the Com- 
poser called for the insertion of a figure 2. This 
meant, as became clear enough through a subse- 
quent reference to his published scores, that he 
wished two quarter-notes to receive the value of 
three eighth-notes, but was not understood at the 
time by his helper. "Never mind," said the Com- 

293 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

poser, graciously/'/ will write it differently." He 
cancelled the figure 2, and completed the measure 
with a rest. 

A similar instance occurred in the fifth measure, 
where the Composer called insistently for a double 
sharp (x). The editor ventured to object, and the 
passage was tried on the piano, at the Composer's 
request. The double sharp was felt by him to be 
unsatisfactory, and was sacrificed. "It wont make 
much difference, anyway" was his whispered com- 
ment. 

A curious point, to finish with: On the first day 
the editor inquired about doubtful notes by name, 
as, A, C-sharp, and the like, while the Compos- 
er indicated their position by specifying lines and 
spaces — - as, third space, second line, and so on. 
The next day, when the editor made his inquiries 
on the basis of lines and spaces, the Composer 
oftenest named the notes by letter. 

Toward the end of the last sitting, "Dr. Cooke " 
once again came to the fore and hinted that the 
result of our endeavors might perhaps be not a re- 
production of one of the Composer's manuscripts, 
but of a mental picture in the Composer's mind. 
The " picture," as secured by us, was not, it must 
be admitted, without distortion. The Composer 
himself used the word "scattered" in such a way 
as to imply that he had sketched out his ideas in 
life on various detached bits of paper. He added 

294 



THE SHADOW WORLD 

that a certain member of his family "would know." 
The hopes raised by this declaration have not been 
realized. 

"Mo more music to-day" whispered "Dr. 
Cooke"; and the sitting — the sittings — ended. 



THE END 









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